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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.
Valerii Palkin, Eugene Maslyukov
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 9 | September 2022 | Pages 1091-1100
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2045146
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The paper offers a double-cascade scheme for reducing the concentration of 232, 234, 236U isotopes in reprocessed uranium hexafluoride. The greatest decrease of the ratio between the masses of 236U and 235U is provided in the product of the first ordinary cascade enriched by 235U at the concentration of less than 20%. For this purpose, a special mode of stages operation is determined. Enrichment by 232, 234U is performed in the second ordinary cascade, which is fed by the product of the first cascade. After being purified from 232, 234U, the waste flow is diluted till the concentration of 235U is less than 5%. This paper describes the methodology for calculating the parameters of cascades with the stage separation factors correlating with gas centrifuges. This methodology served as a basis for a computational experiment. It is demonstrated that the output gained after the dilution meets the requirements of the American Society for Testing and Materials C996-20 specification for the commercial grade of low-enriched uranium hexafluoride in terms of 232, 234U isotopes. The content of 236U in it is several times less than during the direct enrichment of reprocessed uranium hexafluoride.