Thermal-hydraulics Analysis of a Radioisotope-powered Mars Hopper Propulsion System

Conference · Tue Feb 01 00:00:00 EST 2011

OSTI ID:1016187

O'Brien, Robert C; Klein, Andrew C; Taitano, William T; Gibson, Justice; Myers, Brian; Howe, Steven D

Thermal-hydraulics analyses results produced using a combined suite of computational design and analysis codes are presented for the preliminary design of a concept Radioisotope Thermal Rocket (RTR) propulsion system. Modeling of the transient heating and steady state temperatures of the system is presented. Simulation results for propellant blow down during impulsive operation are also presented. The results from this study validate the feasibility of a practical thermally capacitive RTR propulsion system.

• Research Organization: Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: DE-AC07-05ID14517
• OSTI ID: 1016187
• Report Number(s): INL/CON-10-20461; TRN: US1103011
• Resource Relation: Conference: Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space 2011,Albuquerque, NM,02/07/2011,02/10/2011
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
DESIGN
HEATING
HOPPERS
PROPULSION SYSTEMS
RADIOISOTOPES
ROCKETS
SIMULATION
THERMAL HYDRAULICS
TRANSIENTS
cermet
mars hopper
nuclear
power
radioisotope
RTG