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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
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Using the impulsive approximation to study the velocity changes of stars during disk-sphere collisions and a method due to Bottlinger to study the post collision orbits of stars, the formation of various types of interacting galaxies is studied as a function of the distance of closest approach between the two galaxies.
General analytical expressions for cross sections for direct ionization in atom-atom collisions are evaluated using the classical impulse approximation. The approach is also applied to ion-atom and molecule-molecule interactions. The overall accuracy of the obtained cross sections in a broad range of energy is better, when compared with existing measurements for many collision systems, than accuracy of other analytical predictions available in literature.
Calculations of the longitudinal and transverse momentum distributions for H-3 production at large momentum in alpha-(C-12) collisions near 2A GeV are compared to experiment. Triton exchange and final-state interactions are shown to represent large corrections to the impulse approximation for proton knockout. A method for calculating interference effects for inelastic fragmentation is discussed. Good agreement with experiment using a phenomenological overlap function for (H-3)-p is found successful in describing H-3 production in pion-induced reactions. Comparisons to momentum distributions obtained through (p, 2p) and (e, ep) reactions on He-4 are made.
The solid core nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) represents the next major evolutionary step in propulsion technology. With its attractive operating characteristics, which include high specific impulse (approximately 850-1000 s) and engine thrust-to-weight (approximately 4-20), the NTR can form the basis for an efficient lunar space transportation system (LTS) capable of supporting both piloted and cargo missions. Studies conducted at the NASA Lewis Research Center indicate that an NTR-based LTS could transport a fully-fueled, cargo-laden, lunar excursion vehicle to the Moon, and return it to low Earth orbit (LEO) after mission completion, for less initial mass in LEO than an aerobraked chemical system of the type studied by NASA during its '90-Day Study.' The all-propulsive NTR-powered LTS would also be 'fully reusable' and would have a 'return payload' mass fraction of approximately 23 percent--twice that of the 'partially reusable' aerobraked chemical system. Two NTR technology options are examined--one derived from the graphite-moderated reactor concept developed by NASA and the AEC under the Rover/NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) programs, and a second concept, the Particle Bed Reactor (PBR). The paper also summarizes NASA's lunar outpost scenario, compares relative performance provided by different LTS concepts, and discusses important operational issues (e.g., reusability, engine 'end-of life' disposal, etc.) associated with using this important propulsion technology.
A new theory of gravitational shocking based on time-dependent perturbation theory shows that the changes in energy and angular momentum due to a slowly varying disturbance are not exponentially small for stellar dynamical systems in general. It predicts significant shock heating by slowly varying perturbations previously thought to be negligible according to the adiabatic criterion. The theory extends the scenarios traditionally computed only with the impulse approximation and is applicable to a wide class of disturbances. The approach is applied specifically to the problem of disk shocking of star clusters.
The nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) provides a unique propulsion capability to planners/designers of future human exploration missions to the Moon and Mars. In addition to its high specific impulse (approximately 850-1000 s) and engine thrust-to-weight ratio (approximately 3-10), the NTR can also be configured as a 'dual mode' system capable of generating electrical power for spacecraft environmental systems, communications, and enhanced stage operations (e.g., refrigeration for long-term liquid hydrogen storage). At present the Nuclear Propulsion Office (NPO) is examining a variety of mission applications for the NTR ranging from an expendable, single-burn, trans-lunar injection (TLI) stage for NASA's First Lunar Outpost (FLO) mission to all propulsive, multiburn, NTR-powered spacecraft supporting a 'split cargo-piloted sprint' Mars mission architecture. Each application results in a particular set of requirements in areas such as the number of engines and their respective thrust levels, restart capability, fuel operating temperature and lifetime, cryofluid storage, and stage size. Two solid core NTR concepts are examined -- one based on NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) derivative reactor (NDR) technology, and a second concept which utilizes a ternary carbide 'twisted ribbon' fuel form developed by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The NDR and CIS concepts have an established technology database involving significant nuclear testing at or near representative operating conditions. Integrated systems and mission studies indicate that clusters of two to four 15 to 25 klbf NDR or CIS engines are sufficient for most of the lunar and Mars mission scenarios currently under consideration. This paper provides descriptions and performance characteristics for the NDR and CIS concepts, summarizes NASA's First Lunar Outpost and Mars mission scenarios, and describes characteristics for representative cargo and piloted vehicles compatible with a reference 240 t-class heavy lift launch vehicle (HLLV) and smaller 120 t HLLV option. Attractive performance characteristics and high-leverage technologies associated with both the engine and stage are identified, and supporting parametric sensitivity data is provided. The potential for commonality of engine and stage components to satisfy a broad range of lunar and Mars missions is also discussed.
Pulsed plasma thrusters (PPT's) offer the combined benefits of extremely low average electric power requirements (1 to 150 W), high specific impulse (approximately 1000 s), and system simplicity derived from the use of an inert solid propellant. Potential applications range from orbit insertion and maintenance of small satellites to attitude control for large geostationary communications satellites. While PPT's have been used operationally on several spacecraft, there has been no new PPT technology development since the early 1970's. As result of the rapid growth in the small satellite community and the broad range of PPT applications, NASA has initiated a development program with the objective of dramatically reducing the PPT dry mass, increasing PPT performance, and demonstrating a flight ready system by October 1997. This paper presents the results of a series of near-Earth mission studies including both primary and auxiliary propulsion and attitude control functions and reviews the status of NASA's on-going development program.
For one-way transfers between Earth and Venus, charts are obtained that show velocity, time, and angle parameters as functions of the eccentricity and semilatus rectum of the Sun-focused vehicle conic. From these curves, others are obtained that are useful in planning one-way and round-trip missions to Venus. The analysis is characterized by circular coplanar planetary orbits, successive two-body approximations, impulsive velocity changes, and circular parking orbits at 1.1 planet radii. For round trips the mission time considered ranges from 65 to 788 days, while wait time spent in the parking orbit at Venus ranges from 0 to 467 days. Individual velocity increments, one-way travel times, and departure dates are presented for round trips requiring the minimum total velocity increment. For both single-pass and orbiting Venusian probes, the time span available for launch becomes appreciable with only a small increase in velocity-increment capability above the minimum requirement. Velocity-increment increases are much more effective in reducing travel time for single-pass probes than they are for orbiting probes. Round trips composed of a direct route along an ellipse tangent to Earth's orbit and an aphelion route result in the minimum total velocity increment for wait times less than 100 days and mission times ranging from 145 to 612 days. Minimum-total-velocity-increment trips may be taken along perihelion-perihelion routes for wait times ranging from 300 to 467 days. These wait times occur during missions lasting from 640 to 759 days.
There are clear advantages of development of a Nuclear Thermal Rocket (NTR) for a crewed mission to Mars. NTR for in-space propulsion enables more ambitious space missions by providing high thrust at high specific impulse (approximately 900 sec) that is 2 times the best theoretical performance possible for chemical rockets. Missions can be optimized for maximum payload capability to take more payload with reduced total mass to orbit; saving cost on reduction of the number of launch vehicles needed. Or missions can be optimized to minimize trip time significantly to reduce the deep space radiation exposure to the crew. NTR propulsion technology is a game changer for space exploration. However, "NUCLEAR" is a word that is feared and vilified by some groups and the hostility towards development of any nuclear systems can meet great opposition by the public as well as from national leaders and people in authority. Communication of nuclear safety will be critical to the success of the development of the NTR. Why is there a fear of nuclear? A bomb that can level a city is a scary weapon. The first and only times the Nuclear Bomb was used in a war was on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War 2. The "Little Boy" atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and the "Fat Man" on Nagasaki 3 days later on August 9th. Within the first 4 months of bombings, 90- 166 thousand people died in Hiroshima and 60-80 thousand died in Nagasaki. It is important to note for comparison that over 500 thousand people died and 5 million made homeless due to strategic bombing (approximately 150 thousand tons) of Japanese cities and war assets with conventional non-nuclear weapons between 1942- 1945. A major bombing campaign of "firebombing" of Tokyo called "Operation Meetinghouse" on March 9 and 10 consisting of 334 B-29's dropped approximately1,700 tons of bombs around 16 square mile area and over 100 thousand people have been estimated to have died. The declaration of death is very clear for conventional weapons and then the declaration of death due to radiation becomes vague and unclear. This may have been due to people mis-understanding the dangers and effects of radiation when assessing the damage and harm to people initially, but it is also become insidious when expressing opposition to nuclear energy. A nuclear radiation accident can be scary due to the power involved and the fear of radiation release. The International Atomic Energy Agency defines a nuclear and radiation accident a "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility." There have been 3 commercial nuclear reactor accidents (Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima) that stand out to the public and much of the information about the result and impact to workers, environment, and public can be misleading. Often information is presented without clear correlation with radiation and other pertinent information is left out presenting a very scary situation to affect the emotions of the reader. A very boring but "critically acclaimed" movie was made in 1979 called "The China Syndrome" starring Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon. The film was released on March 16, 1979, 12 days before the 3-Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania. The basis from the movie was from a few nuclear plant incidents and in particular, the Brown's Ferry Alabama Power Plant fire. In one scene from the movie, a physicist Dr. Elliott Lowell played by Donald Hotton states that a China Syndrome event would make "an area the size of Pennsylvania" permanently uninhabitable. Real serious nuclear incidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima are often sited to make people fear the consequences of using nuclear power. However, the consequences are at best poorly communicated and at worst fictitiously inflated to instigate social unrest against nuclear power. There is an article being circulated on Facebook with a title "28 Signs that the (US) West Coast is being absolutely fried with nuclear radiation from Fukushima" which focus on mis-information and fear mongering. Nuclear power and NTR are powerful resources that can open many doors for future prosperity and capability. With great power comes great responsibility. Radiation and its effects need to be better understood, quantified, and communicated. A human mission to mars has its own risks of deep space radiation and is considered a considerable risk at 400 milli-Sieverts per year in deep space and 245 milli-Sieverts per year on the surface of Mars as measured by the Mars Curiosity mission. Although these quantities of ionizing radiation are within the astronaut career limit, it exceeds the yearly average amounts of ionizing radiation. Astronaut crews have experienced these levels of radiation before, but for durations shorter than a year, and a mission to Mars could possibly be 3 years in length. There is also evidence that people can comfortably handle higher levels of ionizing radiation where the radiation occurs naturally like Ramsar, Iran when people can experience 270 milli-Sieverts per year. A risk posture that the development, test, and flight of an NTR will meet opposition from groups who oppose nuclear energy must be likely and the impact can be sever to the effort. Active risk mitigation must be taken for an NTR full-scale development project. The NTR design must take into account safety for transport and off nominal conditions. Nuclear fuel element must consider containment of fission products and Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) that may meet less opposition should be considered for safety and security reasons. Even though testing was conducted on Rover/NERVA safely and successfully in the 60's with exhaust sent heavenward in to open air, modern testing of NTR must consider full containment and no release of ionizing radiation to the public and must meet the current requirement of no more than 0.1 milli-Sieverts per year to the public. 0.1 milli-Sieverts is equivalent to eating one banana or a 20 hour plane flight. Good communication with the public and regulatory agencies will be essential to show that all effort is applied toward protection to the public and astronauts. The inspiring endeavor to put humans on Mars to study the planet, search for life, and learn more about this Solar System will be full of risks but it will be worth it. NTR will be worth the development effort if it allows humans to explore our Solar System.
Impulsive solar flare X rays spectral characteristics, examining electron energy, bremsstrahlung, microwave bursts and particle escape, collisions and injection
The Nuclear Thermal Rocket (NTR) derives its energy from fission of uranium-235 atoms contained within fuel elements that comprise the engine's reactor core. It generates high thrust and has a specific impulse potential of approximately 900 specific impulse - a 100 percent increase over today's best chemical rockets. The Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) project, funded by NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) program, includes five key task activities: (1) Recapture, demonstration, and validation of heritage graphite composite (GC) fuel (selected as the Lead Fuel option); (2) Engine Conceptual Design; (3) Operating Requirements Definition; (4) Identification of Affordable Options for Ground Testing; and (5) Formulation of an Affordable Development Strategy. During fiscal year (FY) 2014, a preliminary Design Development Test and Evaluation (DDT&E) plan and schedule for NTP development was outlined by the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC), Department of Energy (DOE) and industry that involved significant system-level demonstration projects that included Ground Technology Demonstration (GTD) tests at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), followed by a Flight Technology Demonstration (FTD) mission. To reduce cost for the GTD tests and FTD mission, small NTR engines, in either the 7.5 or 16.5 kilopound-force thrust class, were considered. Both engine options used GC fuel and a common fuel element (FE) design. The small approximately 7.5 kilopound-force criticality-limited engine produces approximately157 thermal megawatts and its core is configured with parallel rows of hexagonal-shaped FEs and tie tubes (TTs) with a FE to TT ratio of approximately 1:1. The larger approximately 16.5 kilopound-force Small Nuclear Rocket Engine (SNRE), developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) at the end of the Rover program, produces approximately 367 thermal megawatts and has a FE to TT ratio of approximately 2:1. Although both engines use a common 35-inch (approximately 89-centimeters) -long FE, the SNRE's larger diameter core contains approximately 300 more FEs needed to produce an additional 210 thermal megawatts of power. To reduce the cost of the FTD mission, a simple one-burn lunar flyby mission was considered to reduce the liquid hydrogen (LH2) propellant loading, the stage size and complexity. Use of existing and flight proven liquid rocket and stage hardware (e.g., from the RL10B-2 engine and Delta Cryogenic Second Stage) was also maximized to further aid affordability. This paper examines the pros and cons of using these two small engine options, including their potential to support future human exploration missions to the Moon, near Earth asteroids (NEA), and Mars, and recommends a preferred size. It also provides a preliminary assessment of the key activities, development options, and schedule required to affordably build, ground test and fly a small NTR engine and stage within a 10-year timeframe.
Radiative heat transfer to the propellant and reactor criticality for a fissionable gaseous rocket engine are analyzed to determine their interdependence. The necessity for propellant thicknesses of approximately 1-3 m due to poor thermal absorption properties of hydrogen significantly affects reactor critical radius and mass. The two primary adverse effects are: (1) increased absorption in the reflector- moderator for a given reflector thickness and (2) poor utilization of thermal neutrons by the core due to the lower geometrical view factor of the core for the reflector walls. In fact, there is a minimum core radius at a particular propellant thickness which allows the system to “go” critical. Engine performance is limited primarily to two regions of operation: the first, a specific impulse of approximately 1550 sec at a thrust level of 2 x 10(exp 6) lb. and second, a specific impulse of approximately 2200 sec at a thrust level of 5.3 x 10(exp 6) lb.
A simple, analytic approximation is derived to calculate trip time and performance for propulsion systems of very high specific impulse (50,000 to 200,000 seconds) and very high specific power (10 to 1000 kW/kg) for human interplanetary space missions. The approach assumed field-free space, constant thrust/constant specific power, and near straight line (radial) trajectories between the planets. Closed form, one dimensional equations of motion for two-burn rendezvous and four-burn round trip missions are derived as a function of specific impulse, specific power, and propellant mass ratio. The equations are coupled to an optimizing parameter that maximizes performance and minimizes trip time. Data generated for hypothetical one-way and round trip human missions to Jupiter were found to be within 1% and 6% accuracy of integrated solutions respectively, verifying that for these systems, credible analysis does not require computationally intensive numerical techniques.
Preliminary data were obtained from a 30 cm ion thruster operating on krypton propellant over the input power range of 0.4 to 5.5 kW. The data presented are compared and contrasted to the data obtained with xenon propellant over the same input power envelope. Typical krypton thruster efficiency was 70 percent at a specific impulse of approximately 5000 s, with a maximum demonstrated thrust to power ratio of approximately 42 mN/kW at 2090 s specific impulse and 1580 watts input power. Critical thruster performance and component lifetime issues were evaluated. Order of magnitude power throttling was demonstrated using a simplified power-throttling strategy.
Preliminary data were obtained from a 30 cm ion thruster operating on krypton propellant over the input power range of 0.4-5.5 kW. The data are presented, and compared and contrasted to those obtained with xenon propellant over the same input power envelope. Typical krypton thruster efficiency was 70 percent at a specific impulse of approximately 5000 s, with a maximum demonstrated thrust-to-power ratio of approximately 42 mN/kW at 2090 s specific impulse and 1580 watts input power. Critical thruster performance and component lifetime issues were evaluated. Order-of-magnitude power throttling was demonstrated using a simplified power-throttling strategy.
Recursive approximation gives least-squares best fit to exact response. Algorithm yields finite-impulse-response approximation of unknown single-input/single-output, causal, time-invariant, linear, real system, response of which is sequence of impulses. Applicable to such system-inversion problems as suppression of echoes and identification of target from its scatter response to incident impulse.
Technical memorandum discusses mathematical technique described in "Recursive Inversion by Finite-Impulse-Response Filters" (ARC-12247). Technique is recursive algorithm yielding finite-impulse-response approximation of unknown single-input/single-output, causal, time-invariant, linear, real system, response of which is sequence of impulses. Useful in such diverse applications as medical diagnoses, identification of military targets, geophysical exploration, and nondestructive testing.
A test program aimed at the re-qualification of the 0.2-lbf attitude control thruster of the Voyager 2 spacecraft was carried out while the spacecraft was in flight on an interplanetary trajectory to Uranus. The objective of the program was to determine if the 0.2-lbf thruster could be successfully and repeatedly fired at pulse widths of less than the standard minimum pulse width of 10 milliseconds with no degradation. It was demonstrated that the thruster was qualified for short pulse operation at pulse widths of 4 ms or greater. Pulse widths of 4.0 ms provide an impulse bit of approximately 45 percent of the impulse provided by a 10-ms pulse, and the pulse-to-pulse and unit-to-unit variation is approximately plus or minus 10 percent.