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Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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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.
Robert J. Dowling
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 20-28
Progress in Fusion Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22841
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The U.S. Fusion Technology Development Program integrates the diverse technology activities within the Office of Fusion Energy. The program contains essentially all the technology activities, both to support the scientific efforts and to resolve a limited number of critical technology feasibility issues. There has been a significant amount of progress in the last few years in the development of reactor-scale fusion technologies. For example, in the area of gyrotron development for radio frequency (RF) heating, 28 gigahertz (GHz) gyrotrons at 200 kW continuous wave (cw) and 60 GHz gyrotrons at 124 kW cw have been operated. Present plans call for continuing development of 100 GHz gyrotrons at higher power levels. In the magnetics area, construction of the Large Coil Test Facility (LCTF) will be completed and initial operations with two coils should begin in 1983. The other four large coils should be delivered to permit full 6 coil torus testing to begin in 1984. The research and development plans for the Magnetic Fusion Energy Program are contained in the Fusion Technology Development Plan (FTDP) which is being distributed. In order to assure that the activities described in the FTDP are consistent with the overall fusion program strategy and to optimize resource allocation recognizing budget constraints, the Fusion Technology Program has prioritized its activities. This paper will review some of the recent progress and future plans in fusion technology in the U.S. Magnetic Fusion Program.