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Nuclear Installations Safety
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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.
I. Maya, K. R. Schultz, J. M. Battaglia, L. C. Brown, E. T. Cheng, R. L. Creedon, D. R. Engler, W. G. Homeyer, M. T. Simnad, P. W. Trester, C. P. C. Wong, R. W. Goodrich, B. K. Jensen, R. Krauss
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 178-183
Hybrids and Nonelectric Applications | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22864
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A conceptual fusion synfuel production system has been developed with the unique features of: (1) a fusion blanket producing high-temperature (1250°C) process heat, and (2) the GA sulfur-iodine thermochemical cycle. The system incorporates a two-zone blanket which achieves a tritium breeding ratio of 1.1 while delivering a high fraction (30%) of the fusion heat at high temperatures (1250°C). The multiple barriers to tritium permeation in the blanket design permit the hydrogen product to meet 10CFR20 regulatory requirements without stringent requirements on the tritium recovery systems. A ceramic heat exchanger, incorporating SiC tubes and headers to contain the process stream and a cooled, Inconel 718 pressure shell to contain the helium, was designed for transferring the heat from the high-temperature coolant to the process. A good heat-line match of the blanket heat-source temperature distribution to the requirements of the thermochemical plant was attained under the dual goal of maximizing process efficiency and minimizing the hydrogen cost. The results are a process efficiency of 45%, an overall plant efficiency of 43%, and an estimated cost of hydrogen of $12 to $14 per Gigajoule of hydrogen ($11 to $13 per million Btu).