A design study was performed to investigate packaging and deployment options for the potassium—Rankine, nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) spacecraft described by Rovang (1992). The subject spacecraft is the cargo portion of a split‐sprint (cargo/piloted) Mars mission, carrying 144 mt of cargo. Two parallel SP‐100 type reactors, potassium—Rankine power conversion assemblies, and argon ion thrusters are utilized in the selected architecture. A spacecraft design and deployment approach which uses two heavy lift launch vehicles (HLLV) to insert the entire spacecraft into low Earth orbit is presented.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Packaging and deployment of a 5.5 MWe potassium—Rankine nuclear electric propulsion spacecraft


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    10th SymposiumùSpace Nuclear Power and Propulsion ; 1993 ; Albuquerque, NM, USA


    Published in:

    AIP Conference Proceedings ; 271 , 3 ; 1203-1208


    Publication date :

    1993-01-20


    Size :

    6 pages





    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




    Potassium-Rankine nuclear electric propulsion for SEI applications

    ROVANG, RICHARD / JOHNSON, GREGORY / MILLS, JOSEPH | AIAA | 1991


    Potassium Rankine Cycle System Design Study for Space Nuclear Electric Propulsion

    Yoder, G. / Carbajo, J. / Murphy, R. et al. | AIAA | 2005