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Division Spotlight
Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
Meeting Spotlight
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
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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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.
Walter M. Polansky
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 13 | Number 2 | February 1988 | Pages 201-206
Overview | Heavy-Ion Fusion | doi.org/10.13182/FST88-A25101
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The U.S. heavy-ion fusion program emphasizes research and development (R&D) on linear induction accelerators. This strategy emerged in 1983, after the U.S. Department of Energy established the heavy-ion fusion accelerator research (HIFAR) program to acquire an appropriate data base for future decisions on heavy-ion inertial fusion. Since that time, HIFAR has advanced the understanding of high-current ion beam transport, and accelerator technology through laboratory-scale experiments and supporting theoretical studies. Although each program element will continue to contribute to the HIFAR data base over the next few years, present accelerator experiments cannot supply sufficient data to adequately satisfy the program objective. Consequently, HIFAR is approaching a transition between the research and accelerator demonstration phases. The history, status, and short-term plans of HIFAR are examined. The program structure, review of the technical status, and introduction of a proposed R&D program that can minimally meet the HIFAR objective are discussed.
