If NASA wants to get to Mars sooner, it is necessary to solve the problems caused by many Mars missions, such as dangerous radiation, space food stocks, and dwelling diseases (caused by prolonged isolation) Anxiety, irritability, etc.), etc. However, the current chemical fuel rockets can not help us achieve this goal quickly, so a group of engineers started to restart a study on the engine that was shut down in 1972.
The energy provided by the combustion of chemical fuels can send astronauts to the moon, but using this rocket technology to move to Mars will be a long journey, and while the search for nuclear fission technology dates back to the 1950s, In August of this year, NASA announced that it has signed a $ 18.8 million deal with atomic energy company BWXT to design fuel and reactors for the Nuclear Propulsion System (NTP), and the new rocket technology is likely to Open a new era of space exploration.
Michael Houts, principal of NTP at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, said: "The power of NTP will allow us to make quick Mars trips and potentially help us to create more advanced systems." The NTP rocket launch Thrust enough to reach twice the chemical fuel rockets.NTP rocket does not use oxygen to burn fuel, but the use of nuclear fission reactors as a stove, heating liquid hydrogen and hydrogen as a thrust.
According to Vishal Patel, a researcher at BWXT, a founding member of the BWXT company, 'The thermonuclear propulsion system allows you to reach Mars faster, and its speed Almost twice as many as the current rocket, and we hope we can reduce the time it takes to get to Mars to 3 or 4 months.
Unlike other propulsion schemes that use antimatter or fusion, researchers have been contemplating the feasibility of nuclear fission rocket technology, a study that began with the Atomic Energy Commission rover project of 1955 (three years earlier than NASA) Year), the project was based on the prototype NERVA rocket, but was later discontinued due to spending cuts in 1972. At that time, NASA had suspended the production of Apollo 18-20 and Saturn 5. The NTP technology The brief revival of the Space Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Project (SNTP) in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to the same project being invested in before the flight test.
John Helmey, head of the NTP project at BWXT, said: "The point is that the previous research data on the NERVA rockets were well documented and we did not start from scratch." We conducted the research based on the research at that time. BWXT will focus on the conceptual design of the fuel source and reactor core, and now the study faces several challenges.
Jonathan Witter, chief engineer at BWXT's NTP project, said the first nuclear test regulations have changed: "Potential emissions from engine exhaust mean that engineers can not let hydrogen out into the atmosphere." BWXT plans to test at NASA's Stanislas Space Center A new approach to combine hydrogen with oxygen to make it easier to collect water.The initial small-scale experiments would use non-radioactive hydrogen to test this exhaust gas collection method so that the radioactive tail gas produced during future nuclear tests could be readily available Collect it.
According to Witter, engineers are also redesigning their fuel prototypes with new materials that surround uranium fuel particles.Because rocket performance is also temperature dependent, BWXT expects ceramic and tungsten materials to make the rocket better at higher temperatures In addition, the NERVA project uses 90% HEU, which has reached the weapon level today, and the BWXT design will use less than 20% HEU to limit it to low enriched uranium (Plutonium) , Uranium enrichment could involve non-governmental organizations in the project, which could change the rules of the game, but the failure history of space nuclear technology is unlikely to allow NASA to succeed in its initial Mars mission.
Hoff said: 'NTP is one of several advanced propulsion technologies and scientists have put forward many designs that use chemical fuels and electricity.' 'Scott Hall, a developer of a prototype electric propulsion system that has a record breaking record at the University of Michigan, said: I'd love to see these technologies in space, but these ideas can not be realized soon enough.Optimistically speaking, it may take 15 years, in fact, it will be more likely to take 50 years.Nuclear propulsion, like electricity propulsion, will be very slow but full of potential And a bright future '.
