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Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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LLNL, Ampera partner to develop thorium-based TRISO fuel
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has formed a strategic partnership with Ampera to develop the company’s nuclear fuel concept through a project named THUNDER, for Thorium Unimodal Droplet Ejection for Reactors.
The focus of THUNDER is fabricating TRISO made with kernels of thorium rather than the usual uranium. LLNL and Ampera will evaluate and optimize liquid metal–jetting technology to produce highly uniform, spherical kernels of thorium-232 for later processing into TRISO fuel.
Technical Session|Space Nuclear Propulsion
Monday, May 5, 2025|1:00–2:40PM CDT|SPOC A (Space & Rocket Center)
Session Chair:
Will Grier (NASA Langley Research Center)
Session Organizer:
Harold Gerrish (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center)
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Coalescence of Designed and Natural Space Radiological Environments
1:00–1:25PM CDT
Tyler R. Steiner (NASA Glenn Research Center), Jarvis A. Caffrey (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center), Jonathan D. Barth (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)
Paper
Presentation Slides (Visible to Attendees)
Designing Nuclear Electric Propulsion Systems: Optimizing Under Mission Constraints
1:25–1:50PM CDT
Pablo Rubiolo (Univ. Grenoble Alpes), Francisco Szmandiuk (Univ. Grenoble Alpes)
Preliminary Guidelines on the use of Highly Enriched Uranium in NASA Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion Projects
1:50–2:15PM CDT
Susan S. Voss (GNNA LLC), James Werner (AMA)
Preliminary Low-Thrust Direct Trajectory Design Using Nuclear Electric Propulsion for Rendezvous Missions to Jupiter
2:15–2:40PM CDT
Monica A. Salunkhe (Univ. Alabama, Huntsville), Gabe Xu (Univ. Alabama, Huntsville), L. Dale Thomas (Univ. Alabama, Huntsville)