DARPA and NASA are advancing toward the goal of the world’s first in-orbit demonstration of a nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) engine via DRACO, the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations. DARPA has finalized an agreement with Lockheed Martin for the company to begin work on the fabrication and design of the experimental NTR vehicle (X-NTRV) and its engine.
An NTR achieves high thrust similar to in-space chemical propulsion but is two-to-three-times more efficient. With a successful demonstration, we could significantly advance humanity’s means for going faster and farther in space and pave the way for the future deployment for all fission-based nuclear space technologies.
The objective of the DRACO programme is to demonstrate a nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) system in orbit. NTP uses a nuclear reactor to heat propellant to extreme temperatures before expelling it through a nozzle to produce thrust. Compared with conventional space propulsion technologies, nuclear thermal propulsion offers a high thrust-to-weight ratio around 10,000 times greater than electric propulsion and a two-to-five times greater specific impulse than chemical propulsion.
The team will complete final design of the nuclear reactor, manufacture the reactor’s hardware and high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel, assemble the components and deliver the fueled reactor as a complete subsystem for integration into the DRACO.
DRACO is targeted for a 2027 launch from Earth in ‘cold’ status (meaning that the reactor is turned off as a part of launch safety protocols) by a conventional rocket, and then the reactor will be powered on once the craft attains an appropriate location above low Earth orbit.
The DRACO program takes advantage of the nation’s early investments in nuclear thermal technology via the previous Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applications (NERVA) program, but with a new fuel option that presents fewer logistical hurdles. DARPA is using high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel, made possible via National Security Presidential Memorandum 20 (NSPM-20), which updated U.S. policy for the launch of space nuclear power and propulsion. As an additional safety measure, DARPA will engineer the system so that the engine’s fission reactor will stay turned off until it reaches its designated orbit.
The U.S. Space Force will provide the launch vehicle that will take the X-NTRV into space in 2027. The Department of Energy will provide HALEU metal, to be processed into fuel by the performer. BWX Technologies (BWXT), one of Lockheed Martin’s partners in the effort, will develop the nuclear reactor and fabricate the HALEU fuel.
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The money spent on the new Nerva, would be better spent on other propulsion, and orbit raising technologies like tethers, and laser momentum exchange.
For some time I’ve believed aliens would be the last moral panic used to frighten Americans into compliance with government demands. It looks like that day is here.
Carlo Rubbia wants to use Americium
https://infinite.mit.edu/video/carlo-rubbia-new-approach-nuclear-space-propulsion”-mit-media-lab-colloquium-series-4142000
Less bulky than NTR
There’s also a British company working on a plasma drive engine, but it is at least 10 years away.
NTR’s in space need a good source of free H2 for tanking up. There is one place that’s accessible – Titan. Of course you can run N2 & CH4 through an NTR for launching loads into Titanian orbit, but they’re not the real value item. The H2 in the atmosphere can then propel Low-pressure NTR’s with an ISP of 1300 seconds.
“Officials did not disclose the thrust the DRACO engine will produce, although Calomino said it will have a specific impulse, a measure of efficiency, of about 700 seconds. That is significantly higher than even the best chemical engines although the design goal for NTP systems is 850 to 900 seconds. “For the DRACO mission, we’re right at the level where we can get that engineering relevance that we need for a better understanding for higher-thrust engines.”..”
https://spacenews.com/nasa-and-darpa-select-lockheed-martin-to-develop-draco-nuclear-propulsion-demo/
So looks like worse specific impulse than the old NERVA/Timberwind…..oh well; there is also the hope of reverse-engineered UAP tech.
Considering the recent UFO whistleblowers testimonies at the Congress, better for NASA to skip these steps and go directly to anti gravity alien tech.
Although as I always comment in videos about the issue… with irony… if there are so many crashed UFOs… many of them crashing by themselves, others when hit my our airplanes (like an Apache helicopter being downed by a tribesman with arrows!), it probably means the technology of the aliens is so bad and unsafe we should not be researching it haha.
Or it’s a Trojan Horse.
We are told that the UFOs have superior nanotech and yet they crash all the time.
We are told that the aliens are AIs and yet we are told we recovered bodies.
We are told that DoD is scared of UFOs and yet there is zero investment in space colonization or exotic physics.
Government would like for nothing more than the opportunity to issue cost plus contracts for Space Force Earth-Moon interceptors. If there were aliens zipping around then there would be massive investment from the bureaucratic state. No investment means no aliens.
But thank goodness the media had aliens to distract people from the failed plea bargains of nerrdowell sons of prominent politicians.
Don’t forget a Sky Diver for undersea unidentified objects.
Considering the development cost, the per unit cost, and the political cost nuclear rocket doesn’t get us anything. Space refueling and reusability will buy us all we need. To send men to the outer planets we will need nuclear power coupled to ion/plasma rockets but that’s a long way from now.
Sorry, I meant interplanetary – not interstellar.
Although it is interesting that this new NTR design uses HALEU fuel and should be able to pass the US regulatory hurdles that have prevented any NTR engines from being tested in space, this design still faces the same basic limitations that all NTR designs have.
1) The propellant is LH2, which is a deep cryogen which has a very low density (ten times lower than methane/lox). Long term storage in space is problematic, so it would probably only be used in the outbound phase of an interplanetary mission.
2) The thrust-to-weight ratio is much lower than a chemical rocket motor, and due to the low propellant density and the deep cryogen nature of LH2, the mass ratio per stage is likely to be much worse than from most common chemical propellants.
Assuming that Starship ends up providing cheap and frequent access to LEO, methane-LOX is likely to remain a better choice for interstellar missions, even those requiring high delta-v.
You pretty much have to use H2 as the reaction mass for nuclear thermal, unless you’re going for something exotic like the nuclear lightbulb or salt water rocket approaches; You’re not getting hotter than a chemical rocket, really, due to material limits, the ISP gain is from a lower molecular weight in the exhaust.
Since mass ratio is exponential to the ratio between delta V and exhaust velocity, having several times the ISP isn’t a big deal for low delta V missions, but it becomes very important for high delta V missions, such as launching to the outer planets.
The nice thing here is that, while the thrust to weight ratio isn’t quite as good as for chemical rockets, it IS good enough to do your burn in a relatively short period, allowing you to use this for gravity assist maneuvers, which aren’t feasible with ion propulsion.
You mean you can take advantage of the Oberth effect by burning at the perigee.
Yes, exactly.
So will this MAY culminate in a series of NERVA-like tests in orbit before being put back on the shelf because rocket science is hard enough without dumping LH2 through white hot nuclear reactors… Perhaps this will proceed alongside the LM fusion pinch… Google BWXT for news and all you get “is BWXT a buy or a sell per the recent earnings call?”