ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2026
Nuclear Technology
March 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
A year in orbit: ISS deployment tests radiation detectors for future space missions
The predawn darkness on a cool Florida night was shattered by the ignition of nine Merlin engines on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The thrust of the engines shook the ground miles away. From a distance, the rocket appeared to slowly rise above the horizon. For the cargo onboard, the launch was anything but gentle, as the ignition of liquid oxygen generated more than 1.5 million pounds of force. After the rocket had been out of sight for several minutes, the booster dramatically returned to Earth with several sonic booms in a captivating show of engineering designed to make space travel less expensive and more sustainable.
Patrick J. O’Neal, Sunil S. Chirayath, Qi Cheng
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 7 | July 2022 | Pages 811-823
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2021.2024037
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A nuclear forensics technique, based on the maximum likelihood method, for the attribution of reactor type, fuel burnup, and time since irradiation (TSI) of separated pure plutonium (Pu) samples was previously developed at Texas A&M University. The method utilized measured values of ten intra-elemental isotope ratios in the Pu sample and a large database consisting of the values for these ratios as a function of the three attributes: reactor type, fuel burnup, and TSI. However, this method failed for Pu samples with mixed attributes. Hence, a new technique based on machine learning methods was developed that matched the capabilities of the previous maximum likelihood method for pure Pu samples. This new methodology used support vector machines for reactor-type discrimination and Gaussian process regression for fuel burnup quantification. The TSI was calculated analytically using the predicted reactor type and fuel burnup. This new method holds great potential for the attribution of mixed Pu samples.