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Division Spotlight
Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology
Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
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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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.
P. A. Finn, D. K. Sze, A. Hassanein
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 14 | Number 2 | September 1988 | Pages 791-797
Tritium Properties and Interactions with Material | Proceedings of the Third Topical Meeting on Tritium Technology in Fission, Fusion and Isotopic Applications (Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May 1-6, 1988) | doi.org/10.13182/FST88-A25231
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The self-pumped limiter concept was the impurity control system for the reactor in the Tokamak Power Systems Study (TPSS). The use of a self-pumped limiter had a major impact on the design of the tritium systems of the TPSS fusion reactor. The self-pumped limiter functions by depositing the helium ash under a layer of metal (vanadium). The majority of the hydrogen species are recycled at the plasma edge; a small fraction permeates to the blanket/coolant which was lithium in TPSS. Use of the self-pumped limiter results in the elimination of the plasma processing system. Thus, the blanket tritium processing system becomes the major tritium system. The main advantages achieved for the tritium systems with a self-pumped limiter are a reduction in the capital cost of tritium processing equipment as well as a reduction in building space, a reduced tritium inventory for processing and for reserve storage, an increase in the inherent safety of the fusion plant and an improvement in economics for a fusion world economy.