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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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.
Fumihiro Masukawa, Yoshihiro Nakane, Yosuke Iwamoto, Hiroshi Nakashima
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 3 | December 2009 | Pages 680-684
Accelerators | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (PART 3) / Nuclear Plant Operations and Control | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9289
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The radioactivity produced in accelerator cooling water was estimated to determine the maintenance scenario of Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC) accelerators. The PHITS and the MCNPX codes were used to calculate the proton and neutron fluxes in water-cooled accelerator components. The activation cross-section sets of oxygen for high-energy protons and neutrons were evaluated from the available experimental data and theoretically calculated data by the INC/GEM and the LAHET codes. The radioactivity from corrosion products was also estimated by scaling of the measurements at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization 12 GeV Proton Synchrotron Experiment (KEK-PS) and Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility (LAMPF). The tritium estimation is an acceptable level for disposal to the environment, while short-lived nuclides at the 3-GeV synchrotron may raise the dose rate in the machine room.
