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Division Spotlight
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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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May 2025
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.
Kenneth A. Van Riper
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 3 | December 2009 | Pages 848-851
MC Calculations | 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-A9317
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We have added a source definition component to the Moritz geometry editing and display program. Gamma line emission can be imported from a library based on the Brookhaven National Laboratory Nuclear Data Center. The user can select one or more isotopes from a tree view list. The abundances can be corrected for radioactive decay between two times. The line emission is then converted to MCNP SDEF format. Tabulated data, such as an X-ray tube spectrum, can be read and converted to MCNP format. Interactive tools are available for defining source volumes, direction, cone source opening angle, and bias direction; these items can be shown together with the geometry. All source definition items can be entered exactly in dialog fields. Source definitions can be read from existing input files. The tools will expedite and verify source definition and ensure accuracy and do not require knowledge of the MCNP SDEF syntax.