In the current 2005 US budget environment, competition for fiscal resources make funding for comprehensive space reactor development programs difficult to justify and accommodate. Simultaneously, the need to develop these systems to provide planetary and deep space‐enabling power systems is increasing. Given that environment, designs intended to satisfy reasonable near‐term surface missions, using affordable technology‐ready materials and processes warrant serious consideration. An initial lunar application design incorporating a stainless structure, 880 K pumped NaK coolant system and a stainless/UO2 fuel system can be designed, fabricated and tested for a fraction of the cost of recent high‐profile reactor programs (JIMO, SP‐100). Along with the cost reductions associated with the use of qualified materials and processes, this design offers a low‐risk, high‐reliability implementation associated with mission specific low temperature, low burnup, five year operating lifetime requirements.
Design of a Low Power, Fast‐Spectrum, Liquid‐Metal Cooled Surface Reactor System
SPACE TECH.& APPLIC.INT.FORUM-STAIF 2006: 10th Conf Thermophys Applic Microgravity; 23rd Symp Space Nucl Pwr & Propulsion; 4th Conf Human/Robotic Tech & Nat'l Vision for Space Explor.; 4th Symp Space Coloniz.; 3rd Symp on New Frontiers & Future Concepts ; 2006 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA)
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 813 , 1 ; 319-326
2006-01-20
8 pages
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Design of a Low Power, Fast-Spectrum, Liquid-Metal Cooled Surface Reactor System
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