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New ambitious missions are being planned today to send larger probes beyond the confine of our solar system, all the way to interstellar regions — all of which will provide us with unprecedented knowledge about our universe and worlds to explore. Spacecraft, especially those that travel deep into the solar system, require an efficient propulsion system for adequate deep-space thrust generation capacity capable of carrying equipment and people reliably to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond.
Solar energy does not work much beyond Mars and only in line-of-sight with the Sun. Chemical sources don’t work for very long as their energy density is too low and their weight is prohibitive on long missions.
Space has also become another domain of warfare and countries are developing space commands to ASAT weapons both direct Ascent missiles to coorbital killer satellites to directed energy weapons. Many space protection strategies are being developed including disaggregated small satellite constellations and hardening of satellites. As the proliferation of ASAT weapons take place one of the critical capability will be maneuverability in a quick, agile and sustained fashion. This maneuverability will be needed for both defensive missions wherein the satellites will be able to avoid the threat as well as offensive missions to track and target the satellites in different orbits. However, maneuverability has been limited by the availability of limited fuel onboard satellites.
Now countries are exploring making use of nuclear power. Nuclear propulsion would replace a similar thrust process in existing satellites and ships derived from chemical engines – but is able to go further, faster and with less fuel onboard. Militaries are also looking towards Nuclear thermal propulsion as it will enable maneuverability by providing much higher thrust and twice the propellant efficiency of legacy chemical systems.
Chemical Rockets
The standard means of propulsion for spacecraft use chemical rockets. The chemical rockets produce thrust by igniting one type of chemical (the oxidizer) to burn another (the propellant), Burning stuff goes one direction, spaceship goes the other. There are two main types: solid-fueled (such as the solid rocket boosters on the Space Shuttle), and liquid-fueled (such as the Saturn V). In both cases, a chemical reaction is employed to produce a very hot, highly pressurized gas inside a combustion chamber. The engine nozzle provides the only outlet for this gas which consequently expands out of it, providing thrust.
The chemical reaction requires a fuel, such as liquid hydrogen or powdered aluminum, and an oxidizer (an agent that produces chemical reactions) such as oxygen. Building a successful rocket involves making sure you have the fuel and pumps you need, and the ability to control the explosions you’re making without melting the engines or detonating the whole assembly. There are many other variables that ultimately also determine the efficiency of a rocket engine, and scientists and engineers are always looking to get more thrust and fuel efficiency out of a given design.
Recently, private company SpaceX has been conducting test flights of their Starship launcher prototype. This vehicle uses a “full-flow staged combustion (FFSC) engine”, the Raptor, which burns methane for fuel and oxygen for oxidizer. Such designs were tested by the Russians in the 1960s and the US government in the 2000s, but as yet none has flown in space. The engines are much more fuel efficient and can generate a much higher thrust-to-weight ratio than traditional designs.
However, current chemical rockets — even the most efficient designs — top out at about 18,000 miles per hour — well short of the 670 million miles per hour of light. That is limited by the fundamentals of the rocket equation, the speed of a craft is limited by the speed of its exhaust. Relying on today’s propulsion technologies will result in long duration missions with significant unsafe exposure for humans to cosmic radiation and microgravity; combined with infrequent travel windows, difficult abort scenarios and limited reusability.
Most craft use liquid oxygen and either liquid hydrogen or a modified jet fuel. SpaceX’s next-generation rockets will run on methane and oxygen. For the future super-toxic stuff like fluorine or theoretical substances like metallic hydrogen are being considered , both of which could yield much, much better energy density than our current fuels. Hydrogen is the real potential game-changer since it’s largely considered safe in metallic form. Hydrogen is so potent that no material we know of could take the heat of its exhaust. So, to use it effectively, we’d have to cool of the reaction, sacrificing power and efficiency in the process.
Rocket scientists rate propulsion methods based on a metric called Specific Impulse, which means, if I have a pound of fuel, for how many seconds will that pound of fuel create a pound of thrust. A specific impulse of around 900 s might be achievable in Nuclear propulsion. In comprision, one pound of the chemical mixture powering the Space Launch System—NASA’s in utero rocket for the agency’s planned mission to Mars—produces about 269 seconds of thrust in a vacuum. Which means spaceships would be able to carry a lot more fuel, and therefore fire their thrusters for a longer portion of the trip to Mars. Even better, a thermal fission spaceship would have enough fuel to decelerate, go into Martian orbit, and even return to Earth.
Nuclear propulsion
Nuclear fission derives energy from splitting atomic nuclei, while nuclear fusion does so by joining them, releasing energy in the process. Rockets lifting off from Earth will depend on chemical fuels for the foreseeable future. However, once in orbit, nuclear engines could take over and provide propulsion to accelerate spacecraft through space.
During the IAEA webinar, “Atoms for Space: Nuclear Systems for Space Exploration,” experts highlighted that Advances in both nuclear fission and fusion will be indispensable for deep-space travel, also highlighting that nuclear energy could supply electricity for onboard systems and instrumentation, and power a sustained human presence on celestial bodies in the solar system.
Nuclear electric propulsion (NEP)
Many spacecraft already use nuclear propulsion. They use radioactive material to heat one junction of a thermocouple and so generate electricity by the thermoelectric or Seebeck effect. This is then used to power the electrical systems of the spacecraft, rather than to provide propulsion. The amount of power generated this way though is quite low; nothing higher than around 600 W has ever been flown. In comparison, ESA’s Smart 1 used solar cells to generate the 1.2 kW necessary to power the ion thrusters that carried it to the Moon.
Nuclear electric propulsion (NEP), in which the thrust is provided by converting the thermal energy from a nuclear reactor into electrical energy, eliminating the associated NTP needs and limitations of storing propellants onboard. In NEP, the thrust is lower but continuous, and the fuel efficiency far greater, resulting in a higher speed and potentially over 60 per cent reduction in transit time to Mars compared to traditional chemical rockets.
Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) rockets
However plans have been made to fly fully functional nuclear reactors in order to provide propulsion, as well as power some spacecraft. One of the ways for Nuclear propulsion is thermal fission. Which is to say, the engine would generate heat by splitting atoms and use that heat to burn hydrogen or some other chemical.
The nucleus of an atom consists of sub-atomic particles called protons and neutrons. These determine the mass of an element – the more protons and neutrons, the heavier it is. Some atomic nuclei are unstable and can be split into several smaller nuclei when bombarded with neutrons. This is the process of nuclear fission, and it can release an enormous amount of energy. As the nuclei decay, they also release more neutrons which go on to fissure more atoms – producing a chain reaction.
The NTP system involves placing a small nuclear reactor on the spacecraft to generate heat from uranium fuel. Propellant gas , such as liquid hydrogen, is heated by nuclear fission to high temperatures, creating a high pressure gas within the reactor chamber. When the gas is shot out through a rocket nozzle at the back of the craft to produce thrust and moves the spacecraft forward.
Nuclear Thermal Propulsion allows for more efficient, lower weight, and faster maneuvering of satellites or spaceships. The advantages of NTP are that space flights would need to lift less fuel into space, and NTP engines would reduce trip times – cutting travel time to Mars by up to 25 per cent compared traditional chemical rockets. Reduced time in space also reduces astronauts’ exposure to cosmic radiation.
Nuclear fission rockets are not envisaged to produce the kind of thrust necessary to lift large payloads from the surface of the Earth into space. Once in space though, they are much more efficient than chemical rockets – for a given mass of propellant, they can accelerate a spacecraft to much higher speeds. A specific impulse of around 900 s might be achievable. Nuclear fission rockets have never been flown in space, but they have been tested on the ground. They should be able to shorten flight times between Earth and Mars from some seven months to about three months for future crewed missions.
Obvious drawbacks, however, include the production of radioactive waste, and the possibility of a launch failure which could result in radioactive material being spread over a wide area. Most proposed designs claim exhaust would not be radioactive. but its temperature and so the specific impulse of the rocket, would be limited by the melting point of the materials used in the reactor core.
A major engineering challenge is to sufficiently miniaturize a reactor so that it will fit on a spacecraft. There is already a burgeoning industry in the production of compact fission reactors, including the development of a fission reactor that is smaller than an adult human.
Nuclear Fusion
A fusion rocket is a theoretical design for a rocket driven by fusion propulsion that could provide efficient and sustained acceleration in space without the need to carry a large fuel supply. The design requires fusion power technology beyond current capabilities and much larger and more complex rockets.
Fusion nuclear pulse propulsion is one approach to using nuclear fusion energy to provide propulsion. Fusion’s main advantage is its very high specific impulse, while its main disadvantage is the (likely) large mass of the reactor. A fusion rocket may produce less radiation than a fission rocket, reducing the shielding mass needed.
The surest way of building a fusion rocket is to use hydrogen bombs as proposed in Project Orion, but such a spacecraft would be massive and the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty prohibits the use of such bombs. For that reason bomb-based rockets would likely be limited to operating only in space. An alternate approach uses electrical (e.g. ion) propulsion with electric power generated by fusion instead of direct thrust.
Fusion rockets, like the Princeton Field Reversed Configuration reactor concept under development at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, would have the advantage of producing a direct fusion drive (DFD), directly converting the energy of the charged particles produced in the fusion reactions into propulsion for the spacecraft.
“A DFD can produce specific power several orders of magnitude higher than other systems, reducing trip times and increasing payloads, thus enabling us to reach deep space destinations much faster,” said Stephanie Thomas, Vice President of Princeton Satellite Systems, who discussed possible DFD-powered missions into near-interstellar space, human Mars missions and lunar base surface power. She also explained that a DFD could have the advantages of its small size and the need for very little fuel – a few kilograms could power a spacecraft for ten years.
Countries race to develop Nuclear propulsion
Nuclear-powered rocket concepts are not new. US scientists first tested nuclear spacecraft technology in the Nevada desert in the 1950s and 1960s before the programme was cancelled in 1971. The United States conducted studies and significant ground tests from 1955 to 1972 to determine the viability of such systems, but ceased testing when plans for a crewed Mars mission were deferred. Since then, nuclear thermal propulsion has been revisited several times in conceptual mission studies and technology feasibility projects.
US Russia race
The development of nuclear propulsion might bring back the era of fission-powered satellites which was started by Soviet scientists when they actually solved many of those challenges by 1967, and started launching them. Americans had their own program, called SNAP-10A, which launched in in 1965.
IN 2016, Russia’s national nuclear corporation Rosatom announced it is building a nuclear engine that will reach Mars in a month and a half—with fuel to burn for the trip home. Russia might not achieve its goal of launching a prototype by 2025. But that has more to do with the country’s financial situation (not great) than the technical challenges of a nuclear engine. Roscosmos claims the craft will be capable of “interstellar” travel – which means flying between stars. It is hoped the spaceship will be able to carry passengers and crew once a material is developed to protect them from the radiation.
Russia is planning to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to the moon, then Venus, then Jupiter. Roscosmos, Russia’s federal space agency, announced in May 2021 that its “space tug” — the term for a spacecraft that transports astronauts or equipment from one orbit to another — is scheduled to launch on an interplanetary mission in 2030. The spacecraft’s energy module, named “Zeus,” is designed to generate enough power to propel heavy cargo through deep space. It’s essentially a mobile nuclear-power plant.
The US hopes to put a nuclear-power plant — a 10-kilowatt reactor integrated with a lunar lander — on the moon as early as 2027. So far, however, NASA has only sent one nuclear reactor to space, on a satellite in 1965. Other spacecraft, like the Mars Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, are also nuclear-powered, but they don’t use a reactor. Russia, meanwhile, has put more than 30 reactors in space. It’s “Zeus” module would advance those efforts by using a 500-kilowatt nuclear reactor to propel itself from one planet to the next, according to Russian state news agency Sputnik.
The mission plan calls for the spacecraft to approach the moon first, then head toward Venus, where it can use the planet’s gravity to shift directions toward its final destination, Jupiter. That would help conserve propellant. The entire mission would last 50 months (a little over four years), according to Alexander Bloshenko, Roscosmos’ executive director for long-term programs and science. During a presentation in Moscow on Saturday, Bloshenko said Roscosmos and the Russian Academy of Sciences are still working to calculate the flight’s ballistics, or trajectory, as well as the amount of weight it can carry.
Russia tests nuclear propulsion spacecraft’s key element
In March 2018, Roscosmos unveiled plans to spend around $27.7 million to design a super heavy-lift carrier rocket. The development is expected to be completed by October 31, 2019. The vehicle should be able to lift over 80 tonnes into low Earth orbit and be able to deliver at least 20 tonnes of payload to the Moon. The project should include the possibility of increasing the rocket’s carrying capacity to 140 and 27 tonnes to the two aforementioned distances. It is planned that the new carrier could be used for delivering space ships and stations not only to the Moon, but also to Mars and Jupiter.
The propulsion includes a nuclear reactor and systems, required to produce the necessary heat, as well as for reactor control and protection. Technical solutions included in the concept of the unit will allow to solve a wide range of space tasks, including research programs of the Moon and distant planets.
Vladimir Koshlakov, chief of Keldysh Research Center, said: “A mission to Mars is possible in the very near future, but that’s not an aim in itself. Our engines can be the foundation for a whole range of space missions that currently seem like science fiction. “Reusability is the priority.We must develop engines that do not need to be fine-tuned or repaired more than once every ten flights. “Also, 48 hours after the rocket returns from space, it must be ready to go again. This is what the market demands.”
The cooling system, which is the most important element of the Russian space transport and energy unit developed on the basis of megawatt-class nuclear electric propulsion, has been successfully tested in Russia, materials published on the government procurement website on Oct 2018 stated.
The tests have been conducted in conditions as close as possible to the outer space. The project is developed by the Keldysh Research Center on request from the Russian Roscosmos state corporation. Russia has been developing a unique project to create a transport and energy unit on the basis of a megawatt-class nuclear electric propulsion since 2010.
US-China race
The renewed space race between the US and China has been heating up recently and the Moon appears to be a target. In 2019 China landed the first-ever probe on the far side of the Moon and isworking on possibly sending humans to the Moon within the next few years. In 2017, The South China Morning Post reported that the nation is looking to make huge strides into space over the next three decades, with the country’s biggest rocket developer announcing its plan to create a fleet of space shuttles that run on nuclear energy, rather than chemical fuel, by 2040 and then use that technology to harvest space resources. That includes mining operations on asteroids and accumulating solar power by building space-based plants. China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology reportedly said the rockets and spaceships would be capable of interplanetary travel, including for commercial purposes. “By 2045, China will have the best transport system in space,” academy director Li Hong said, according to the Post.
An atmospheric or orbital rocket failure could potentially release radioactive material over our planet. But this would only happen while it was leaving Earth’s orbit and the risk is low due to the fact it isn’t potentially radioactive until after the generator is turned on. This doesn’t happen until it is in orbit.
Jeff Thornburg, chief executive and president of propulsion company Interstellar Technologies and a former propulsion executive with SpaceX and Stratolaunch, speaking on a panel at the Space Tech Expo in May 2019, said he supported additional work on that technology. “There’s some key technology development that really needs to happen beyond the current state of the art,” he said. That technology, coupled with electric propulsion, “are the future of how we’re going to facilitate that expansion.”
He acknowledged that, beyond the technological issues, there are regulatory ones involving such systems, whether operated by government agencies or in the private sector. He added, though, he was encouraged by comments at that March meeting of the National Space Council, where new Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Kelvin Droegemeier said his office would be reviewing nuclear space launch policy.
UK Initiative
British spacecraft could travel to Mars in half the time it now takes by using nuclear propulsion engines built by Rolls-Royce under a new deal with the UK Space Agency. The aerospace company hopes nuclear-powered engines could help astronauts make it to Mars in three to four months, twice as fast as the most powerful chemical engines, and unlock deeper space exploration in the decades to come. Dr Graham Turnock, the chief executive of the UK Space Agency, said using nuclear power in space was “a gamechanging concept that could unlock future deep-space missions that take us to Mars and beyond”.
The government hopes nuclear technology could transform space travel by providing plentiful energy to power the spacecraft as they travel further from the sun and are unable to make use of solar energy. Rolls-Royce has provided the nuclear propulsion technology used to power the Royal Navy’s submarine fleet for 60 years. The company hopes to build several small modular nuclear reactors on land too, to help meet the UK’s expected growth in demand for electricity.
US Nuclear Space propulsion initiatives
Thanks to renewed interest in exploring the Red Planet in recent decades, NASA has begun new studies of nuclear thermal propulsion, recognizing its potential value for exploration of Mars and beyond. An NTP system can cut the voyage time to Mars from six months to four and safely deliver human explorers by reducing their exposure to radiation. That also could reduce the vehicle mass, enabling deep space missions to haul more payload.
NASA is developing Nuclear power rockets under its Game Changing Development Program, the Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) project that could significantly change space travel, largely due to its ability to accelerate a large amount of propellant out of the back of a rocket at very high speeds, resulting in a highly efficient, high-thrust engine. In comparison, a nuclear thermal rocket has double the propulsion efficiency of the Space Shuttle main engine, one of the hardest-working standard chemical engines of the past 40 years. That capability makes nuclear thermal propulsion ideal for delivering large, automated payloads to distant worlds.
The House Appropriations Committee approved $125 million in May 2019 for nuclear thermal propulsion development within the agency’s space technology program. This comes on top of $100 million that Congress provided in 2019, of which $70 million was earmarked for a flight demonstration by 2024. The report accompanying the House bill makes no mention of a 2024 date for a flight demonstration, but does call on NASA to develop “a multi-year plan that enables a nuclear thermal propulsion demonstration, including the timeline associated with the space demonstration, and a description of future missions and propulsion and power systems enabled by this capability.” “As we push out into the solar system, nuclear propulsion may offer the only truly viable technology option to extend human reach to the surface of Mars and to worlds beyond,” said Sonny Mitchell, Nuclear Thermal Propulsion project manager at Marshall. “We’re excited to be working on technologies that could open up deep space for human exploration.”
US government is developing a nuclear thermal rocket to send satellites into the vast ‘cislunar’ space between Earth and the Moon in a renewed space race with China. The rocket, which is being developed for the government by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), will have a nuclear thermal propulsion engine. NASA is also working to build a $30 billion manned space station in cislunar space that would act as a staging post for return trips to the Moon – it is being built in collaboration with other space agencies including the European Space Agency ESA. For the US Military a nuclear propulsion engine provides more manoeuvrability in spy and military satellites – meaning they can be repositioned without eating through huge amounts of on board fuel, according to expert Dale Thomas.
On October 20, 2020, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to expand the DOE-NASA partnership on space exploration. Space nuclear power and propulsion is among the key areas of interest listed in the MOU. The MOU establishes a joint working group to research the concept of using nuclear power in space. In the form of a one page paper, the working group will report on “[d]eveloping a multibillion-dollar plan to research, develop, test, and evaluate nuclear propulsion systems for Mars missions transporting astronauts.” The paper will also include a legislative plan and funding network. It is due to come out in early December 2020.
Additionally, in November 2020, DOE is expected to release two space technology solicitations: a Fission Surface Power (FSP) System Design Solicitation and a Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) Industry Solicitation. The solicitation for fission technologies would build upon a DOE July 2020 request for information (RFI) on FSP. The RFI notes that “[s]mall nuclear reactors can provide the power capability necessary for space exploration missions of interest to the Federal government.” The FSP system would aid in exploration of the moon and potentially Mars. The latter thermal propulsion solicitation would stems from a DOE August 2020 pre-solicitation notice for NTP reactor preliminary design.
These activities cap off a year where DOE has significantly increased its attention on space travel. In February of this year DOE joined the National Space Council, and over this period a DOE Secretary of Energy Advisory Board Space Science Working Group has been evaluating DOE’s role and capabilities in space exploration—the results of which are expected shortly.
Finally, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is conducting a study on nuclear propulsion technology for space exploration. The study will pinpoint the various challenges and merits of developing and utilizing such technology. The study is expected to conclude in the early 2021. Despite the significance of these new endeavors in the area of NTP, this isn’t the first time NASA has turned to propulsion technology. In 2017, the space agency awarded nuclear contractor BWXT $20 million to explore NTP designs. For further discussion on potential regulatory and legal questions with nuclear space propulsion, please see our previous blog post, “Back to the Future — NASA Renews Interest in Nuclear Space Propulsion.”
Aerojet Rocketdyne working on NTP
Aerojet Rocketdyne is developing nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) engine system technologies that will provide quick, safe and reliable in-space transportation to support a variety of mission profiles for human-based deep space exploration.
According to it the key features of NTP are that NTP is more than twice as efficient as traditional cryogenic Lox/Hydrogen-fueled rocket engines; Capability to support mission abort scenarios up to 90 days into the mission to safely return astronauts home in the event of an emergency; Reduces crew deep space radiation exposure by up to 40 percent depending on the mission profile, and capability to be reused over several missions, creating a true solar system human taxi to enable the exploration of deep space.
Aerojet Rocketdyne is working with manufacturers to leverage new low-enriched Uranium technology that is safer to handle and reduces expensive regulatory and security challenges; making NTP an attractive alternative to traditional chemical propulsion for crewed deep space missions.
NASA contracts BWX for nuclear thermal propulsion reactor
BWX Technologies announced in Aug 2017 that its BWXT Nuclear Energy, Inc. subsidiary has been awarded an $18.8 million contract from NASA to initiate conceptual designs for a nuclear thermal propulsion reactor in support of a possible future manned mission to Mars.
The scope of the contract includes initial reactor conceptual design, initial fuel and core fabrication development, licensing support for initial ground testing, and engine test program development. Work under the contract is expected to continue through 2019, subject to annual Congressional appropriations and options exercised at customer discretion.
The reactor would be part of a nuclear thermal propulsion rocket engine designed to propel a spacecraft from Earth orbit to Mars and back. BWXT’s reactor design is based on low enriched uranium fuel. Nuclear thermal power for spaceflight has a number of advantages over chemical-based designs, primarily providing higher efficiency and greater power density resulting in lower propulsion system weight. This would contribute to shorter travel times and lower exposure to cosmic radiation for astronauts.
In late September, the Nuclear Thermal Propulsion project will determine the feasibility of using low-enriched uranium fuel. The project then will spend a year testing and refining its ability to manufacture the necessary Cermet fuel elements. Testing of full-length fuel rods will be conducted using a unique Marshall test facility.
However plans have been made to fly fully functional nuclear reactors in order to provide propulsion, as well as power some spacecraft.
Princeton Satellite plan to generate pulses of net power fusion within 7 years
Princeton Satellite system is creating a direct drive fusion propulsion and power systems for a phase II NASA NIAC study. They have follow up government studies to develop the superconducting magnets and other components. They are using radio frequency heating to reach fusion conditions. They need helium 3 which is scarce. There is enough helium 3 for some small space missions but would not be able to scale until there is more helium 3. Also, the cost would not be initially competitive. They are looking at high value niches.
It is a lot easier to make a fusion rocket versus a fusion power plant. Shorter pulses for fusion for propulsion is simpler than constantly generating power. Direct fusion drive or dfd is a new type of rocket engine made of a fusion reactor powering a plasma rocket. It is different from many other nuclear fusion technologies because this single fusion engine can generate both propulsion and electricity to power its payload. The DFT engine is made of a linear array of coaxial magnets with a pair of smaller but stronger mirror magnets at the ends a fusion region. It is centered within the magnet array while cool plasma flows around it to extract energy. This fusion region is about the length of a surfboard and holds very hot plasma that spins like a motor.
Princeton Satellite System has novel antenna configurations. Antennas surrounding the engine create a novel radio frequency heating mechanism which has tuned to particular fuel ions and creates a current in the plasma. The plasma ions get pumped up with increasing energy cycles until the ions become hot enough to fuse once the ions fuse they create new very energetic particles called fusion products. These particles follow paths that take them in and out of the cool plasma layer as they orbit the magnetic field lines with each pass the fusion products lose energy until they get captured by the open field lines and shoot out the back of the engine. This takes just a few milliseconds. The mirror magnet at the end of the engine converts this electron thermal energy into ion kinetic energy. This creates thrust just like a regular rocket nozzle extra heat from the fusion reaction is converted into electricity providing power for scientific instruments and communications.
The ISP is about 20,000. 5 to 10 newtons are generated per megawatt of fusion power. They are looking at 1 to 2 megawatts for the initial space system. This would thus produce 10 to 20 newton using a 2 megawatt system. They want to get their machine cycle down to 3 years. They want to complete the system for less than $100 million. They believe they can also make a pure energy generation system. They refer to this as closed loop mode. There next device should reach fusion in around 2023-2025.
India Isro plans new propulsion for deep space missions
Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is exploring the potential for growing a new propulsion know-how to gasoline spacecraft for its future deep space missions. On January 28, Isro’s UR Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru issued an invite for ‘expression of interest’ for “design and modelling; simulation and analysis; testing and qualification of 100W Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTEG) without radio isotope.’’ Isro calls it alpha source thermoelectric propulsion technology. RTEG will have less mass than solar cells of equivalent power and allow more compact spacecraft that can navigate easier in space. Many missions of Nasa and Russia, Besides China’s 2013 Chang’e 3 mission to the moon and its rover Yutu had used RTG.
Former Isro chairman AS Kiran Kumar said RTEG is futuristic. “It will be useful for long duration missions where alternative energy is not available,” he mentioned. After one other Mars mission, Isro could possibly be eyeing Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus.
According to the Isro doc, “the development of RTEG is taken up as it is envisaged that it will be a part of Isro’s deep space missions for power generation and thermal management.”
According to the doc, the system needs to be able to working in vaccum circumstances of deep space, dusty, carbon dioxide-rich and corrosive environments. Isro says the RTG’s weight needs to be 20 kgs or much less, with a life span of 20 years or extra and survive indefinitely with out harm when saved within the ambiance at temperatures as excessive as 50 levels Celsius. Emphasising on security requirements, the doc says, “It needs to be secure for human dealing with in shut neighborhood beneath all circumstances even with nuclear gasoline hid inside … the unit needs to be resilient to any pre-launch or post-launch explosion in order to not trigger any nuclear contamination within the surroundings.
Testing Potential Materials for Use in Interplanetary Travel With Nuclear Thermal Propulsion
A nuclear-fueled system will need sophisticated materials that can withstand extreme temperatures, hydrogen propellant, and radiation. Oak Ridge National Laboratory-developed experiment is testing advanced materials for spacecraft that may play a key role.
ORNL’s experiment exposed prototype components to electrically heated temperatures reaching over 2,400 degrees Celsius. Soon, scientists will take a scaled-up version, containing fuel surrogates and instrumentation, to the Ohio State University Research Reactor and see how it fares when neutron irradiation is added.
“There’s nothing out there like this,” said ORNL’s Richard Howard. “We’ve built a remarkably efficient platform for reproducing extreme temperatures, and we’re confident the scaled-up version will perform just as well.” Future work may include an even larger version to test full-size fuel elements or other reactor components.
References and Resources also include:
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/nuclear-propulsion-for-space-and-sea-23845/
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Russia_tests_nuclear_propulsion_spacecrafts_key_element_999.html
https://newsrush.in/top-stories/isro-plans-new-propulsion-for-deep-space-missions-india-news/
