SNAP

E&MP126.001

Space Batteries

1965

2^nd year with SNAP-7D [handwritten on back of photograph]

Original Caption by Science Service
^©Naval Weapons Quality Assurance

Additional information:

SNAP-7D Navy NOMAD buoy, Gulf of Mexico, Operating (implanted January 1964)

As well as being used in satellites, radioisotopic power generators, called SNAP in the U.S., and RIPPLE (radio isotopic power packages for electricity) in Europe are also used in a number of industrial and maritime applications. These include offshore oil platform power sources, sonar transducers, Coast Guard buoys and light house energy sources used by U.S., European, Soviet and other government agencies. Inventories of radioactivity in U.S. SNAP units utilizing strontium in the form of SrTiO₃ ranged from 30,000 to 225,000 Ci as of November 1968. Units under development at this date may contain up to a million curies (Radioactivity in the Marine Environment, p.32). Little unclassified information is available on these radioisotopic power generators or any resulting accidents which have occurred after the development and proliferation of these technologies. < source: http://www.davistownmuseum.org/cbm/Rad8f.html >