Surface fission power systems on the Moon and Mars may provide the first US application of fission reactor technology in space since 1965. The requirements of many surface power applications allow the consideration of systems with much less development risk than most other space reactor applications, because of modest power (10s of kWe) and no driving need for minimal mass (allowing temperatures ). The Affordable Fission Surface Power System (AFSPS) study was completed by NASA/DOE to determine the cost of a modest performance, low‐technical risk surface power system. This paper describes the reference AFSPS reactor module concept, which is designed to provide a net power of 40 kWe for 8 years on the lunar surface; note, the system has been designed with technologies that are fully compatible with a Martian surface application. The reactor concept uses stainless‐steel based, ‐fueled, liquid metal‐cooled fission reactor coupled to free‐piston Stirling converters. The reactor shielding approach utilizes both in‐situ and launched shielding to keep the dose to astronauts much lower than the natural background radiation on the lunar surface. One of the important “affordability” attributes is that the concept has been designed to minimize both the technical and programmatic safety risk.
Reference Reactor Module for the Affordable Fission Surface Power System
SPACE TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL FORUM‐STAIF 2008: 12th Conference on Thermophysics Applications in Microgravity; 1st Symposium on Space Resource Utilization; 25th Symposium on Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion; 6th Conference on Human/Robotic Technology and the Vision for Space Exploration; 6th Symposium on Space Colonization; 5th Symposium on New Frontiers and Future Concept ; 2008 ; Albuquerque (New Mexico)
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 969 , 1 ; 277-284
2008-01-21
8 pages
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
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