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Division Spotlight
Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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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Nuclear Technology
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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.
Ingrid Birkel
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 1 | October 2009 | Pages 139-143
Dose/Dose Rate | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (Part 1) / Radiation Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9114
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
ANKA is a ramped 2.5-GeV electron synchrotron light source, which can be operated at all energies from 500 MeV to 2.5 GeV. An online area monitoring network makes it possible to measure the radiation from the decaying beam at eight stations every minute. It consists of two stationary and six mobile stations with a gamma and a neutron detector, which are connected with a central computer by a bus system. Measuring devices and software were developed or customized for ANKA.Special machine shifts were dedicated to the systematic investigation of beam lifetime and ambient equivalent dose, which depend on the beam energy, beam current, and operating conditions of the storage ring.The highest dose rates are measured in the forward direction of insertion devices. The beam is lost at the device with the smallest aperture. Local shielding of the storage ring and operating conditions can be improved with time-resolved dose rate measurements at locations with high dose levels. Low beta optics improves the lifetime of electron beams circulating in vacuum chambers with small aperture. This helps to reduce the dose rate. Furthermore, this has the advantage of reducing the dose rate without the drawback of extra costs for additional shielding.
