NASA works on the development of nuclear rockets to get to Mars

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems has announced the “successful high -impact tests” at the Marshall Center for NASA’s spatial flights to advance the development of the technology of the technology of nuclear thermal propulsion reactors (NTP) for missions of cislunar transportation and quick and agile deep space, including Human missions to Mars.

The tests were carried out in collaboration with NASA to verify the capacity of the specific nuclear fuel of General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) to meet the high performance specifications required to support the extreme operating conditions expected in space.

“The results of the recent tests represent a critical milestone in the successful demonstration of fuel design for NTP reactors”S said Scott Forney, president of General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems in a statement. “The fuel must survive at extremely high temperatures and the hot hydrogen gas environment that would normally find an NTP reactor that operates in space. We are very encouraged by the positive results of the tests that show that the fuel can survive these operational conditions, approaching the potential of the safe and reliable nuclear thermal propulsion for southern missions and deep space ”.

GA-EMS performed several high-impact tests in NASA’s MSFC in Huntsville, Alabama. He Nuclear fuel was tested with a hot hydrogen flow Through the samples and underwent six thermal cycles that increased rapidly to a maximum temperature of 2600 k (Kelvin) or 2,326 degrees Celsius. Each cycle included a 20 -minute retention in maximum performance to demonstrate the effectiveness of protecting the fuel material from erosion and degradation by hot hydrogen. Additional tests were carried out with different protection characteristics to provide more data on how the different improvements of the material improve performance in conditions similar to those of a reactor.

Two or three times more efficient than chemical rocket engines

“As far as we know, we are the first company to use the environmental test installation of compact combustible elements (CFEET) in the NASA MSFC to successfully test and demonstrate the fuel survival capacity after the thermal cycle in representative temperatures of hydrogen and increase rates “Said Dr. Christina Back, Vice President of GA-EMS Nuclear Technologies and Materials.

“We have also performed tests in an environment without hydrogen in our GA-EMS laboratory, which confirmed that the fuel worked exceptionally at temperatures up to 3000 kwhich would allow the NTP system to be two or three times more efficient than conventional chemical rocket engines. We are excited to continue our collaboration with NASA as we mature and tested the fuel to meet the performance requirements for future architectures of Cislunar Misiones and Mars. ”