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2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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The deadline arrives: Checking in on the Reactor Pilot Program
On May 23, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14301, “Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the DOE,” which instructed the Department of Energy to create a Reactor Pilot Program (RPP)—a new system in which companies could pursue DOE authorization to build and test their first-of-a-kind nuclear technologies. EO 14301 set an ambitious goal for that program: three reactors achieving criticality by July 4, 2026.
Technical Session|Sponsored by ANSTD
Wednesday, November 18, 2020|4:50–6:30PM EST
Session Chair:
Jorge Navarro
Alternate Chair:
Paolo F. Venneri
Session Organizer:
Jeffrey C. King
Staff Producer:
Ashley Jiminian (American Nuclear Society)
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Overview of High-Performance Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Rocket Propulsion System
Jimmy Allen (Dynetics), John Foster (University of Michigan), Nicholas Smith (Idaho National Laboratory), Florent Heidet (Argonne National Laboratory), Michael G. Houts (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center), Mark Patterson (Southern Research), Michael Johns (Southern Research)
Paper
Preliminary Parametric Studies of a High Performance Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Rocket System
C. M. McSwain (University of Tennessee), Darrin Leer (University of North Carolina at Charlotte), Ethan Fisher (Mississippi State University), Rittu S. Raju (University of Michigan), Michael G. Houts (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center), Michael G. Jarrett (Argonne National Laboratory), Florent Heidet (Argonne National Laboratory), Jonathan T. Gates (Texas A&M University)
Initial Neutronics Modeling of a Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Rocket Engine using MCNP Code
C M. McSwain (University of Tennessee), Darrin Leer (University of North Carolina), Jonathan T. Gates (Texas A&M University), Ethan D. Fisher (Mississippi State University), Michael G. Houts (NASA MSFC), Rittu S. Raju (University of Michigan)
CNTR: Explanation of Propellant Flow and Description of Initial Experiments
Jonathan T. Gates (Argonne National Laboratory), Darrin Leer (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center), Rittu S. Raju (University of Michigan), Florent Heidet (Argonne National Laboratory), Michael G. Houts (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center), Thomas J. Godfroy (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center), C. M. McSwain (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center), Ethan D. Fisher (NASA)