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Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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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Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
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.
T. Schober, H. Conrads, Armin Schulz
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 23 | Number 2 | March 1993 | Pages 227-229
Technical Note | Materials Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST93-A30150
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Niobium deuteride samples are exposed to vacuum sparks with plasma temperatures exceeding 10 keV and a density of >1023 cm−3. An investigation of the surfaces of the niobium deuteride samples by scanning electron microscopy reveals clear signs of surface melting, orifices, bubbles, blisters, and cracks. The surface features are explained in terms of a very high vapor pressure of deuterium forming in niobium at temperatures near its melting point. Vacuum sparks touching the surfaces for ∼1 µs may expel most of the deuterium from the surface region.
