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International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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Latest News
Dragonfly, a Pu-fueled drone heading to Titan, gets key NASA approval
Curiosity landed on Mars sporting a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) in 2012, and a second NASA rover, Perseverance, landed in 2021. Both are still rolling across the red planet in the name of science. Another exploratory craft with a similar plutonium-238–fueled RTG but a very different mission—to fly between multiple test sites on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon—recently got one step closer to deployment.
On April 25, NASA and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) announced that the Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s icy moon passed its critical design review. “Passing this mission milestone means that Dragonfly’s mission design, fabrication, integration, and test plans are all approved, and the mission can now turn its attention to the construction of the spacecraft itself,” according to NASA.
D. H. Berwald, J. A. Maniscalco
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 1 | Number 1 | January 1981 | Pages 137-159
Technical Paper | Fusion | doi.org/10.13182/FST81-A19922
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An analysis of the potential performance and economic characteristics of several laser fusion breeder reactor (i.e., fusion-fission hybrid) fueled electricity generation systems has been performed. Fusion breeders resulting from several recent conceptual design studies are considered. These are distinguished from one another by the utilization of one of several generic breeder blanket options including a uranium fast fission blanket, a thorium fast fission blanket, a uranium-thorium fast fission blanket, and a thorium-suppressed fission blanket (first time introduced). On the fission side of the system, light water reactors (LWRs), which primarily burn 233U (but also some plutonium), were considered. The fission fuel cycle characteristics and relative proliferation resistance of the various symbiotic electricity generation systems are examined. The results of the economic analysis indicate that systems utilizing LWRs and any of the four breeder blanket concepts can produce electricity for ∼25 to 35% above the cost of electricity produced by a new LWR operating on the current once-through fuel cycle. The laser fusion breeders are predicted to become competitive (as an LWR fuel source) with conventional mined sources of U3O8 when the price of U3O8 reaches about $300/kg (1980 dollars). The results suggest that fusion breeders could supply most or all of our fissile fuel makeup requirements within ∼20 yr after commercial introduction (possibly in 2010) and have nearly unlimited capabilities to support a growing system of LWRs or advanced converter reactors.