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TEM (nuclear Propulsion)
TEM (russian: Транспортно-энергетический модуль, "transport and energy module\unit", NPPS in English) is an under development nuclear propulsion spacecraft with the intention to facilitate the transportation of large cargoes in deep space. It will be constructed by the Russian Keldysh Research Center, NIKIET (Research and Design Institute of Power Engineering) institute, and Rosatom. Mission A Russian project to create an uncrewed nuclear electric rocket spaceship for Solar system exploration. The first reactor tests are scheduled for the early 2020s; as of May 2020, the first orbital flight test of the reactor is planned for no earlier than 2030. The first mission, named ''Zeus'', is envisioned to operate for 50 months and deliver payloads to the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter through multiple gravity assists. Specifications Reactor * Coolant: 78% helium/22% xenon. * Heat power: 3.8 MW * Electric power: 1 MW Spacecraft * Mass: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gas-cooled Reactor
A gas-cooled reactor (GCR) is a nuclear reactor that uses graphite as a neutron moderator and a gas (carbon dioxide or helium in extant designs) as coolant. Although there are many other types of reactor cooled by gas, the terms ''GCR'' and to a lesser extent ''gas cooled reactor'' are particularly used to refer to this type of reactor. The GCR was able to use natural uranium as fuel, enabling the countries that developed them to fabricate their own fuel without relying on other countries for supplies of enriched uranium, which was at the time of their development in the 1950s only available from the United States or the Soviet Union. The Canadian CANDU reactor, using heavy water as a moderator, was designed with the same goal of using natural uranium fuel for similar reasons. Design considerations Historically thermal spectrum graphite moderated gas cooled reactors mostly competed with light water reactors, ultimately losing out to them after having seen some deployment in Brit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xenon
Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the formation of xenon hexafluoroplatinate, the first noble gas compound to be synthesized. Xenon is used in flash lamps and arc lamps, and as a general anesthetic. The first excimer laser design used a xenon dimer molecule (Xe2) as the lasing medium, and the earliest laser designs used xenon flash lamps as pumps. Xenon is also used to search for hypothetical weakly interacting massive particles and as a propellant for ion thrusters in spacecraft. Naturally occurring xenon consists of seven stable isotopes and two long-lived radioactive isotopes. More than 40 unstable xenon isotopes undergo radioactive decay, and the isotope ratios of xenon are an important tool for studying the early history of the Solar System. Radioactive xenon-135 is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
9M730 Burevestnik
The 9M730 Burevestnik (russian: Буревестник; "Petrel", NATO reporting name: SSC-X-9 Skyfall) is a Russian experimental nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile under development for the Russian Armed Forces. The missile has an essentially unlimited range. The Burevestnik is one of the six new Russian strategic weapons unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin on 1 March 2018. History Origins The Soviet Union and later Russia have been uncertain since the 1980s to what extent their ICBM nuclear arsenal is nullified by the United States' anti-ballistic missile system Strategic Defense Initiative, proposed during the Reagan Administration and commonly known as the Star Wars program. This type of weapon flies under the ballistic weapon shield and is part of President Putin's broader program to attempt to advance Russian nuclear strike capability. Development The Russian defense industry began developing an intercontinental-range nuclear-powered cruise missi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RD-0410
RD-0410 (РД-0410, GRAU index: 11B91) was a Soviet nuclear thermal rocket engine developed by the Chemical Automatics Design Bureau in Voronezh from 1965 through the 1980s using liquid hydrogen propellant. The engine was ground-tested at the Semipalatinsk Test Site, and its use was incorporated in the Kurchatov Mars 1994 crewed mission proposal. This engine had slightly higher performance (exhaust temperature and specific impulse) over NERVA (the U.S. nuclear thermal rocket engine project). The design of the reactor core included thermal insulation between uranium carbide/tungsten carbide fuel and the zirconium hydride moderator. This allowed for a very compact reactor core design. Hydrogen flow cooled the moderator first allowing to keep very low neutron energy and high fission cross-section, then it was heated by the direct contact to the fuel rods. To prevent the chemical reaction between carbide and hydrogen, about 1 percent of heptane was added to the hydrogen after the moder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Prometheus
Project Prometheus (also known as Project Promethian) was established in 2003 by NASA to develop nuclear-powered systems for long-duration space missions. This was NASA's first serious foray into nuclear spacecraft propulsion since the cancellation of the SNTP project in 1995. The project was planned to design, develop, and fly multiple deep space missions to the outer planets. The project was cancelled in 2005, due to other demands on NASA's budget. Its budget shrank from $252.6 million in 2005 to only $100 million in 2006, $90 million of which was for closeout costs on cancelled contracts. Namesake Originally named the "Nuclear Systems Initiative", Project Prometheus was named for the wisest of the Titans in Greek mythology who gave the gift of fire to humanity. NASA said the name ''Prometheus'' indicates its hopes of establishing a new tool for understanding nature and expanding capabilities for the exploration of the Solar System. Motivations Due to their distance from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Electric Rocket
A nuclear electric rocket (more properly nuclear electric propulsion) is a type of spacecraft propulsion system where thermal energy from a nuclear reactor is converted to electrical energy, which is used to drive an ion thruster or other electrical spacecraft propulsion technology. The nuclear electric rocket terminology is slightly inconsistent, as technically the "rocket" part of the propulsion system is non-nuclear and could also be driven by solar panels. This is in contrast with a nuclear thermal rocket, which directly uses reactor heat to add energy to a working fluid, which is then expelled out of a rocket nozzle. Conceptual overview The key elements to NEP are: # A compact reactor core # An electric generator # A compact waste heat rejection system such as heat pipes # An electric power conditioning and distribution system # Electrically powered spacecraft propulsion History NASA In 2001, the Safe affordable fission engine was under development, with a tested 30 kW ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Academy Of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such as libraries, publishing units, and hospitals. Peter the Great established the Academy (then the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences) in 1724 with guidance from Gottfried Leibniz. From its establishment, the Academy benefitted from a slate of foreign scholars as professors; the Academy then gained its first clear set of goals from the 1747 Charter. The Academy functioned as a university and research center throughout the mid-18th century until the university was dissolved, leaving research as the main pillar of the institution. The rest of the 18th century continuing on through the 19th century consisted of many published academic works from Academy scholars and a few Ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angara (rocket Family)
The Angara rocket family (Russian: Ангара) is a family of launch vehicles being developed by the Moscow-based Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center. The launch vehicles are to put between and into low Earth orbit and are intended, along with Soyuz-2 variants, to replace several existing launch vehicles. History After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, many formerly Soviet launch vehicles were built in or required components from companies now located in Ukraine, such as Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, which produced Zenit-2, and Yuzhmash, which produced Dnepr and Tsyklon. Additionally, the Soviet Union's main spaceport, Baikonur Cosmodrome, was located in Kazakhstan, and Russia encountered difficulties negotiating for its use. This led to the decision in 1992 to develop a new entirely Russian launch vehicle, named Angara, to replace the launch vehicles now built outside of the country, and ensure Russian access to space without Baikonur. It was decided that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Specific Impulse
Specific impulse (usually abbreviated ) is a measure of how efficiently a reaction mass engine (a rocket using propellant or a jet engine using fuel) creates thrust. For engines whose reaction mass is only the fuel they carry, specific impulse is exactly proportional to the effective exhaust gas velocity. A propulsion system with a higher specific impulse uses the mass of the propellant more efficiently. In the case of a rocket, this means less propellant needed for a given delta-v, so that the vehicle attached to the engine can more efficiently gain altitude and velocity. In an atmospheric context, specific impulse can include the contribution to impulse provided by the mass of external air that is accelerated by the engine in some way, such as by an internal turbofan or heating by fuel combustion participation then thrust expansion or by external propeller. Jet engines breathe external air for both combustion and by-pass, and therefore have a much higher specific impulse than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thrust
Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that system. The force applied on a surface in a direction perpendicular or normal to the surface is also called thrust. Force, and thus thrust, is measured using the International System of Units (SI) in newtons (symbol: N), and represents the amount needed to accelerate 1 kilogram of mass at the rate of 1 meter per second per second. In mechanical engineering, force orthogonal to the main load (such as in parallel helical gears) is referred to as static thrust. Examples A fixed-wing aircraft propulsion system generates forward thrust when air is pushed in the direction opposite to flight. This can be done by different means such as the spinning blades of a propeller, the propelling jet of a jet engine, or by ejecting hot gases from a rocket ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helium
Helium (from el, ἥλιος, helios, lit=sun) is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling and melting point are the lowest among all the elements. It is the second lightest and second most abundant element in the observable universe (hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant). It is present at about 24% of the total elemental mass, which is more than 12 times the mass of all the heavier elements combined. Its abundance is similar to this in both the Sun and in Jupiter, due to the very high nuclear binding energy (per nucleon) of helium-4, with respect to the next three elements after helium. This helium-4 binding energy also accounts for why it is a product of both nuclear fusion and radioactive decay. The most common isotope of helium in the universe is helium-4, the vast majority of which was formed during t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keldysh Research Center
The State Scientific Centre Keldysh Research Center (russian: Центр Келдыша) is a research institute in Moscow, Russia. It is based at 8 Onezhskaya Street (:ru:Онежская улица (Москва), street article in Russian Wikipedia). History Prior to World War II it was known as the Reactive Scientific Research Institute (or Jet Propulsion Research Institute or shortly Jet Institute) or Research Institute for Jet Propulsion (commonly known by the joint initialism RNII; russian: Реактивный научно-исследовательский институт, Reaktivnyy nauchno-issledovatel’skiy institut), and was responsible for the development of the Katyusha rocket launcher. Until 1991 it was known as the Scientific Research Institute of Thermal Processes (NII Thermal Processes, NIITP; НИИ тепловых процессов, НИИТП), conducting research and development in the areas of electrophysics, space instrumentation, propulsion, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
