NASA's nuclear propulsion technology project
- NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio 44135 (United States)
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has initiated a program to establish the readiness of nuclear propulsion technology for the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) and Space Science missions. Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) has been identified as enabling piloted and cargo missions to Mars and also offers a significant payoff for Lunar missions. Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) at 50--100 kW has been identified as enabling a number of outer planet science missions and offers significant payoff at 1--10 MW for Lunar and Mars cargo missions and at 10 s of MW may even be applicable to piloted Mars missions. The Nuclear Propulsion Program relies on many areas of technology, both nuclear and non-nuclear. This paper focuses mainly on the nonnuclear subsystem technologies, the plan which has been developed to deal with each technology and its associated issues, and near term future plans.
- OSTI ID:
- 5497193
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-930103--
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings (American Institute of Physics); (United States), Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings (American Institute of Physics); (United States) Vol. 271:1; ISSN 0094-243X; ISSN APCPCS
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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