Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) presents a distinct alternative in the advanced propulsion landscape, providing “medium” efficiencies relative to the “high” efficiency of electric propulsion and the “low” efficiency of chemical propulsion. In exchange for this medium efficiency, NTP provides high acceleration, enabling much shorter operating times than the higher efficiency alternatives, often resulting in shorter trip times. This compromise has led to NTP’s frequent consideration in human missions, where crew health and logistics benefit significantly from the schedule advantages provided by NTP. However, the logistics and timeliness of science return from science missions also potentially stand to benefit from reduced schedules, as many of the high energy missions exceed a decade in trip time. Presented here are the results of analysis looking at three missions: A mission to Neptune’s moon, Triton, a solar polar orbiter, and a mission to interstellar space. Comparisons to results found in literature for conventional, and future propulsion technologies are presented.


    Zugriff

    Zugriff über TIB

    Verfügbarkeit in meiner Bibliothek prüfen


    Exportieren, teilen und zitieren



    Titel :

    Design Reference Mission Development for Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Enabled Science Missions


    Beteiligte:
    Stephen Edwards (Autor:in) / Adam Irvine (Autor:in) / Robert Hetterich (Autor:in) / Mitchell Rodriguez (Autor:in)

    Kongress:

    AIAA ASCEND ; 2020 ; Online, US


    Medientyp :

    Aufsatz (Konferenz)


    Format :

    Keine Angabe


    Sprache :

    Englisch




    Design Reference Mission Development for Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Enabled Science Missions

    Irvine, Adam / Hetterich, Robert / Edwards, Stephen J. et al. | AIAA | 2020


    Mars mission capabilities enabled by nuclear thermal propulsion

    Edwards, Christine M. / Marcinkowski, Adam / Gebhardt, Ariel et al. | Elsevier | 2023


    Venus Science Design Reference Missions Enabled by Autonomy

    Beauchamp, Patricia M. / Fesq, Lorraine M. | NTRS | 2021


    Enabling Deep Space Science Missions with Nuclear Thermal Propulsion

    Kurt A Polzin / C Russell Joyner / Timothy Kokan et al. | NTRS | 2020


    Nuclear electric propulsion mission performance for fast piloted Mars missions

    Hack, K. J. / George, J. A. / Dudzinski, L. A. | NTRS | 1991