b'Not many people have to wait 10years\x07for\x07the\x07payoff\x07of\x07their\x07hard\x07work,\x07but it is enormously gratifying to see the close-up imagery being beamed 2004 back.Stephen Johnson, director of INL Space Nuclear Power & Isotope Technologies,\x07of\x07the\x07Pluto\x07flybySpace and Security Power SystemsIn 2004, Idaho became home to the Space and Security Power Systems Facility (SSPSF). The following year, Idaho engineers and technicians assembled, tested and delivered to NASA a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) for the New Horizons mission in 2006, which completed its flyby of Pluto in July 2015. INL also assembled and fueled a new design of RTG for the Mars Curiosity Rover, which launched in 2011, arrived at the Red Planet in 2012, and is conducting an extended mission which continues in 2024. In 2019, INL began producing the isotope (Pu-238) needed to fuel future missions. The Mars 2020 mission, which launched on July 30, 2020, touched down on the Martian surface on February 18, 2021. The rover, Perseverance, is currently exploring Mars looking for signs of life and collecting rock and soil samples to potentially be returned to Earth in the future.61'