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Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology
Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
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.
A. Moisseytsev, E. Hoffman, C. Grandy
Nuclear Technology | Volume 173 | Number 3 | March 2011 | Pages 251-269
Technical Paper | Heat Transfer | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A11660
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The selection of the operating temperatures for a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) always involves a trade-off between the plant performance and cost. In this work, the general trends with an increase of the core outlet temperature were calculated for the Advanced Burner Reactor (ABR). First, the benefits of higher temperatures in terms of the higher plant efficiency were calculated for several power conversion systems. To characterize the disadvantages of higher temperatures, the safety margins were investigated for the design conditions, normal operational transients, and beyond-design-basis accidents. The limiting criteria were identified for both oxide and metal fuel core designs. In addition, the effect of the higher temperatures on the structural thicknesses was estimated. A preliminary cost analysis incorporating both benefits and cost penalties of higher temperatures showed the economical benefit potential of higher temperatures, provided that the safety requirements are satisfied by the design and/or material selection.
