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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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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.
Rodolfo Carrera, Elena Montalvo, James W. Van Dam, Guo-Yong Fu, Lee M. Hively, George H. Miley, Marshall N. Rosenbluth, Steven Tamor
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 18 | Number 4 | December 1990 | Pages 535-555
Alpha Particles in Fusion Research | doi.org/10.13182/FST90-A29246
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A simple fusion experiment for the production and control of deuterium-tritium-ignited plasmas for scientific study is considered. The basic elements of fusion product alpha-particle behavior at ignition are analyzed. Alpha-particle containment is rather high even with the assumption of significant levels of toroidal asymmetries. Production of thermally stable plasmas is possible because of the low-beta thermal damping provided by electron cyclotron emission. The stability of internal kink modes, high-number ballooning modes, and toroidicity-induced shear Alfvén eigenmodes is investigated in the presence of fusion alpha particles. These modes can be either stable or unstable depending on the selected operational regime at ignition.
