Particle Bed Reactor engine technology

Conference · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1992

OSTI ID:6740475

Sandler, S; Feddersen, R ^[1]

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1. Grumman Corp., Bethpage, NY (United States)

This paper discusses the Particle Bed Reactor (PBR) based propulsion system being developed under the Space Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (SNTP) program. A PBR engine is a light weight, compact propulsion system which offers significant improvement over current technology systems. Current performance goals are a system thrust of 75,000 pounds at an Isp of 1000 sec. A target thrust to weight ratio (T/W) of 30 has been established for an unshielded engine. The functionality of the PBR, its pertinent technology issues and the systems required to make up a propulsion system are described herein. Accomplishments to date which include hardware development and tests for the PBR engine are also discussed. This paper is intended to provide information on and describe the current state-of-the-art of PBR technology. 4 refs.

• OSTI ID: 6740475
• Report Number(s): AIAA-Paper--92-1493; CONF-920373--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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