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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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ANS joins others in seeking to discuss SNF/HLW impasse
The American Nuclear Society joined seven other organizations to send a letter to Energy Secretary Christopher Wright on July 8, asking to meet with him to discuss “the restoration of a highly functioning program to meet DOE’s legal responsibility to manage and dispose of the nation’s commercial and legacy defense spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW).”
Young H. Lee, Alexander Austin, Brian K. Bairstow
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 8 | August 2020 | Pages 1240-1251
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1731403
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) Program Mission Analysis Team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) requested a JPL Innovation Foundry Architecture Team (A-Team) study to assess mission pull for small RPS [1 to 40 W(electric)] and define the focus of future power system developments required to enable small RPS missions. The A-Team is JPL’s concurrent engineering design team for science definition and early mission concept development, targeting concept maturation levels of 1, 2, and 3. The requested small RPS study aimed to identify the architecture space of potential small RPS missions and suggest power levels that could enable or enhance potential future small spacecraft missions.
This technical note describes the collaborative engineering processes that the A-Team and Mission Analysis Team used to reach results quickly and presents the findings on power requirements for small RPS mission concepts.