DEVELOPING ELECTRIC-PROPULSION POWERPLANTS
Magnetohydrodynamic, turboelectric, and thermionic power conversion in relation to electric propulsion mission requirements
NUCLEAR-ELECTRIC POWER SUPPLY↗
SEARCH · Search NASA
Results for “NUCLEAR POWERPLANT”
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.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Applications of snap-50 class powerplants to selected unmanned electric propulsion missions.
SNAP-50 power plants applied to selected unmanned electric propulsion space missions
NUCLEAR POWER PLANT↗
Fast Interplanetary Missions with Low-Thrust Propulsion Systems
A simple family of indirect-transfer trajectories between circular orbits is used to evaluate the mass ratio required to complete round-trip interplanetary missions using low-thrust propulsion systems. These trajectories, although not optimum, yielded very substantial reductions in total round-trip time for Mars missions with moderate increases in initial weight. For a powerplant specific weight a of 10 pounds per kilowatt of jet power, trip times were reduced from 1200 to 600 days, for a typical manned mission, with an initial weight increase of a factor of two. Comparison with a nuclear rocket with 1000-second specific impulse indicated that the electric-propulsion system required less initial weight for trip times as low as 550 days with alpha equal to 10 and as low as 400 days with alpha equal to 5 pounds per kilowatt. Further weight reductions would be expected with more nearly optimum trajectories.
Moeckel, W. E.↗