Accelerating Space Science with Nuclear Technology

Most space nuclear systems are being designed with defense and human exploration applications in mind, but science applications could be the first meaningful use cases for these systems as they require significantly less power. What design features are scientists looking for and what would be the most impactful missions to apply nuclear power and propulsion to? The Accelerating Space Science with Nuclear Technology workshop took place in Tempe on December 6-7, 2023 to address these questions. The purposes of this workshop were to: 1) obtain direct feedback from the space science community about how they could use these technologies to acquire critical new scientific understanding of the solar system as well as to identify the space nuclear system attributes which would be most advantageous for space science missions and 2) inform the space science community of the progress being made toward operational nuclear thermal and nuclear electric propulsion and fission surface power systems. This panel discussion will summarize the results of the workshop for the NETS community to increase awareness of space science mission needs and priorities for space nuclear technology.

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