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Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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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
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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.
Kyung-Ho Kang, Joachim A. Maruhn
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 31 | Number 3 | May 1997 | Pages 265-279
Technical Paper | ICF Target | doi.org/10.13182/FST97-A30830
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A simple dynamic model is developed for the investigation of the hohlraum symmetrization by estimating the time changes of the optical geometry of the components under the influence of hohlraum radiation. The expansion of the converters heated by ion beams is also included. By performing dynamic simulations of the hohlraum target, it is found that the change in hohlraum geometry due to hydrodynamic expansion has a crucial effect on symmetrization. It is also found that the symmetry is now strongly dependent on time, and the optimal condition can only be satisfied for a limited time interval. An improved version of the hohlraum target is discussed, which may considerably increase the optimal time interval. This concept includes the suppression of the dynamic expansion by using low-Z gas in the hohlraum, the reduction of the optical expansion of the converter by using low-Z material, and modification of the shield configuration.
