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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Installations Safety
Devoted specifically to the safety of nuclear installations and the health and safety of the public, this division seeks a better understanding of the role of safety in the design, construction and operation of nuclear installation facilities. The division also promotes engineering and scientific technology advancement associated with the safety of such facilities.
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.
Jack Metzler, Thuy Le
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 28 | Number 3 | October 1995 | Pages 1359-1364
Design, Operation, and Maintenance of Tritium System | Proceedings of the Fifth Topical Meeting on Tritium Technology In Fission, Fusion, and Isotopic Applications Belgirate, Italy May 28-June 3, 1995 | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A30601
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The maintenance of a nuclear weapons capability requires the periodic replacement of tritium contained in each of the weapons in the nuclear weapons stockpile because the radioactive decay of tritium reduces its quantity by about 5.5 percent per year. The Tritium Recycling Plant (TRP) performs the activities necessary to recover, purify, and recycle tritium returned from the field. Tritium is contained in vessels called reservoirs. The TRP also has the capability to conduct environmental tests to ensure the reliability and quality of the reservoirs. Currently, the U.S. has no source of new tritium. The proposed new TRP is an option the U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE) is considering that could be collocated with the new Tritium Supply Plant if it is built at Oak Ridge, Pantex, Nevada Test Site, or Idaho National Engineering Laboratory1. It will comply with applicable environment, safety and health, (ES&H) regulations and orders. If the new Tritium Supply Plant is built at the Savannah River Site, the existing TRP would be upgraded, as necessary.
