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> NASA and DOE are working another commercial design effort to advance higher temperature fission fuels and reactor designs as part of a nuclear thermal propuls
by le-mark 4y ago
> NASA and DOE are working another commercial design effort to advance higher temperature fission fuels and reactor designs as part of a nuclear thermal propulsion engine. These design efforts are still under development to support a longer-range goal for increased engine performance and will not be used for the DRACO engine.
Anyone have info on how they’re improving on NERVA?
- credit_guy 4y agoIt looks like they are aiming for core temperature of "close to 3000K" [1]. Nerva reached only about 2300K. [1] https://inl.gov/article/space-the-next-frontier-requires-innovation-in-nuclear-fuel-design-and-testing/ https://inl.gov/article/space-the-next-frontier-requires-inn...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- perihelions 4y agoI think the differences are less dramatic than that. You're conflating the nuclear fuel internal temperature (inl.gov link) with hydrogen exhaust temperature (NERVA / 2,300 K). There should be a sizable temperature gradient between those two.
- idlewords 4y agoExactly. The temperature limit for the exhaust (and therefore the specific impulse) is set by the materials used to make the engine. You can run a reactor as hot as you want, but it will want to vaporize itself and the spacecraft around it.
- idlewords 4y agoThere's a big effort to use low-enriched uranium in next generation nuclear thermal designs instead of the highly enriched fuel used in NERVA.