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
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
OSTP memo guides space nuclear plan
A White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) memorandum released on Tuesday guides NASA, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense on their roles in deploying near-term space nuclear power.
This follows a series of NASA announcements last month—driven by the executive order “Ensuring American Space Superiority,” issued by Trump in December—including an ambitious timeline for establishing a moon base, which would rely on fission surface power (FSP) to survive the long lunar night at the moon’s south pole, and plans for a nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) rocket to be launched in 2028.
Michael Pietrykowski, Mark R. Scott
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 199 | Number 1 | January 2025 | Pages 151-161
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2024.2344957
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Age dating a sample of nuclear material is a key part of predetonation technical nuclear forensics. As plutonium stockpiles age, they are more likely to require repurification and mixing to remove in-grown daughter products and maintain a consistent product. Existing age-dating techniques do not adequately address this problem. Four models were trained using machine learning techniques to determine (1) if a sample of weapons-grade plutonium had been repurified, (2) the elapsed time after repurification, and (3) the minimum and maximum elapsed times between repurification and its initial separation/purification/fabrication. The trained models predicted the repurification status with 99% accuracy, the age after repurification with a root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 0.34 years, and the minimum and maximum ages before repurification with RMSEs of 4.66 and 9.34 years, respectively. Age dating plutonium provides valuable insight into the country and possibly the facility of origin of the material, which is one tool to deter state-sponsored nuclear terrorism.