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Ground Testing a Nuclear Thermal Rocket [electronic resource] : Design of a sub-scale demonstration experiment

Published:
Washington, D.C. : United States. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, 2012.
Oak Ridge, Tenn. : Distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Dept. of Energy.
Additional Creators:
Idaho National Laboratory, United States. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, and United States. Department of Energy. Office of Scientific and Technical Information
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Summary:
In 2008, the NASA Mars Architecture Team found that the Nuclear Thermal Rocket (NTR) was the preferred propulsion system out of all the combinations of chemical propulsion, solar electric, nuclear electric, aerobrake, and NTR studied. Recently, the National Research Council committee reviewing the NASA Technology Roadmaps recommended the NTR as one of the top 16 technologies that should be pursued by NASA. One of the main issues with developing a NTR for future missions is the ability to economically test the full system on the ground. In the late 1990s, the Sub-surface Active Filtering of Exhaust (SAFE) concept was first proposed by Howe as a method to test NTRs at full power and full duration. The concept relied on firing the NTR into one of the test holes at the Nevada Test Site which had been constructed to test nuclear weapons. In 2011, the cost of testing a NTR and the cost of performing a proof of concept experiment were evaluated.
Report Numbers:
E 1.99:inl/con-12-26693
inl/con-12-26693
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Note:
Published through SciTech Connect.
07/01/2012.
"inl/con-12-26693"
Joint Propulsion Conference,Atlanta, GA,07/29/2012,08/02/2012.
Stanley K. Borowski; David Bedsun; Debra Lee; Margaret Townsend; Clay A. Cooper; Jennifer Chapman; Ronald Samborsky; Mel Bulman; Daniel Brasuell.
Funding Information:
DE-AC07-05ID14517
View MARC record | catkey: 13598095