The development of a novel high temperature space radiator is
described. A Rotating Bubble Membrane Radiator (RBMR) combines the
best features of heat pipes and droplet radiators while avoiding
their negative attributes. The RBMR offers light weight, self
deployment, ease of startup and its performance is less affected by
acceleration....
Preliminary nuclear design studies have been completed on ten
configurations of nuclear reactors for low power (1-30 kWe) space
applications utilizing thermionic energy conversion. Additional design
studies have been conducted on the TRICE multimegawatt in-core
thermionic reactor configuration. In each of the cases, a reactor
configuration has been determined which...
A rotating, flat plate condensation experiment has been developed to
investigate the heat of the Rotating Bubble Membrane Radiator (RBMR). The
RBMR is a proposed heat rejection system for space applications which uses
working fluid condensation on the inside surface of a rotating sphere to
reject heat to space. The...
An enabling technology for long duration, deep space missions is the availability of a high power, long-lived power supply. The goal of this work is the design of a self-regulating deep space nuclear reactor. The design objectives are to produce 250 kWth for a 25-year period using the presence of...
Incore thermionic space reactor design concepts which operate at a
nominal power output range of 20 to 50 kWe are described. Details of the
neutronic, thermionic, thermal hydraulics and shielding performance are
presented. Due to the strong absorption of thermal neutrons by natural
tungsten, and the large amount of that...
An overall systems design code was developed to model
an advanced in-core thermionic energy conversion based
nuclear reactor system for space applications at power
levels of 10 to 50 kWe. The purpose of this work was to
provide the overall shell for the systems code and to also
provide the...