A system of heat pipe radiators has been designed to provide waste heat rejection for an inertial fusion powered spacecraft capable of manned missions to other planets. The radiators are arrays of unfinned, arterial heat pipes operating at 1500 and 900 K. Liquid metal coolant carries up to 8000 MW of waste heat through feed pipes from on-board components (laser drivers and coil shield). The radiators do not rely on armor for protection from micrometeoroid penetration. An armored radiator design for this application with a 99 % survivability would have a specific mass of 0.06 to 0.11 kg/ kW at 1500 K. Instead, a segmentation of heat pipes is used, and bumpers are utilized to protect the feed pipes. This design reduces the specific mass to 0.015 to 0.04 kg/kW for the coil shield radiator (1500 K) and 0.06 to 0.12 kg/kW for the laser driver radiator (900 K).


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    Title :

    The design of a multimegawatt heat pipe radiator for an inertial fusion rocket powered manned mars mission


    Additional title:

    Konstruktion eines multimegawatt Waermerohrradiators fuer eine bemannte Marsmission mit Traegheitsfusionsraketenantrieb


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    1988


    Size :

    5 Seiten, 4 Tabellen, 8 Quellen


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English