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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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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.
Shih-Jen Wang, Chun-Sheng Chien, Te-Chuan Wang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 126 | Number 1 | April 1999 | Pages 1-9
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT99-A2954
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The MELCOR code, developed by Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), is capable of simulating the severe accident phenomena of light water reactor nuclear power plants (NPPs).A specific station blackout accident (TMLB' sequence) for Maanshan NPP is simulated using the MELCOR 1.8.3 code. The MELCOR input deck for Maanshan NPP is established based on Maanshan NPP design data and the MELCOR users' guides. The initial steady-state conditions are generated with a developed self-initialization algorithm. The main severe accident phenomena and the corresponding fission product release fractions associated with the TMLB' sequence were simulated. The sequence of events up to the vessel breach is similar to that in the SNL report simulated with MELCOR 1.8.2. The predicted results provide useful information for the probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) of Maanshan NPP. This tool will be applied to the PRA, the severe accident analysis, and the severe accident management study of Maanshan NPP in the near future.
