One of the primary goals in designing a fission power system is to ensure that the system can be developed at a low cost and on an acceptable schedule without compromising reliability. The Heatpipe Power System (HPS) is one possible approach for producing near‐term, low‐cost, space fission power. The Heatpipe Operated Moon Exploration Reactor (HOMER‐25) is a HPS designed to produce 25‐kWe on the lunar surface for 5 full‐power years. The HOMER‐25 core is made up of 93% enriched UO2 fuel pins and stainless‐steel (SS)/potassium (K) heatpipes in a SS monolith. The heatpipes transport heat generated in the core through the water shield to a potassium boiler, which drives six Stirling engines. The operating heatpipe temperature is 880 K and the peak fast fluence is 1.6e21 n/cm2, which is well within an established database for the selected materials. The HOMER‐25 is designed to be buried in 1.5 m of lunar regolith during operation. By using technology and materials which do not require extensive technology development programs, the HOMER‐25 could be developed at a relatively low cost. This paper describes the attributes, specifications, and performance of the HOMER‐25 reactor system.


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    Title :

    A Stainless‐Steel, Uranium‐Dioxide, Potassium‐Heatpipe‐Cooled Surface Reactor



    Conference:

    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)


    Published in:

    AIP Conference Proceedings ; 813 , 1 ; 289-297


    Publication date :

    2006-01-20


    Size :

    9 pages





    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



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