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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.
Florent Martinetti, Laurent Donadille, Sabine Delacroix, Catherine Nauraye, Aurélien De Oliveira, Joël Herault, Isabelle Clairand
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 3 | December 2009 | Pages 721-727
Proton Therapy | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (PART 3) / Radiation Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9296
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A Monte Carlo modeling tool was applied at the Institut-Curie Centre de Protonthérapie d'Orsay, France, to simulate the passively scattered beam line used for treatment of ocular melanoma. The primary aim of this study is to validate the model for subsequent calculation of patient doses due to secondary neutrons.The Monte Carlo code MCNPX is used here to model the geometry of the beam line. The beam parameters at the entrance of the ophthalmologic beam line are not well known (beam emittance, lateral distribution, and energy spread). Hence, to accurately implement the beam source in the model, we need to calculate and measure these parameters in the first step of this study. Then, we perform comparisons between calculated and measured proton absorbed dose profiles under various scattering conditions.Comparisons between calculated and measured depth versus dose profiles show discrepancies <0.6 mm (range) and <1.1 mm (beam size and penumbra) for the lateral dose profiles. Hence, calculated relative dose profiles are considered to be correctly described by the Monte Carlo model. Some improvements are still needed to reproduce absolute dose profiles. This study should lead to the use of the numerical model for radiation protection applications.
