Nuclear Rocket Motors: Development Status and Application Prospects

The possibility and expediency of using nuclear rocket motors at the present stage of development of rocketspace technology as part of conventional and advanced space means, including the upper stages of carrier rockets and acceleration blocks, reusable interorbital tugs, and a motor assembly of the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Atomic energy (New York, N.Y.) N.Y.), 2018-08, Vol.124 (4), p.244-250
Main Authors: Koroteev, A. S., Akimov, V. N., Arkhangel’skii, N. I., Kuvshinova, E. Yu, Muzychenko, E. I.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ACCELERATION
DESIGN
Developmental stages
Energy industry
ENGINEERING
Expeditions
GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
Hadrons
Heavy Ions
HYDROGEN
MOBILE REACTORS
MOTORS
Nuclear Chemistry
Nuclear Energy
NUCLEAR ENGINEERING
Nuclear Physics
Nuclear power plants
OXYGEN
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
Rocket engines
ROCKETS
SPACE VEHICLES
TRANSPORT
Tugs
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Summary:The possibility and expediency of using nuclear rocket motors at the present stage of development of rocketspace technology as part of conventional and advanced space means, including the upper stages of carrier rockets and acceleration blocks, reusable interorbital tugs, and a motor assembly of the piloted Martian expedition complex are discussed. It is shown that because of high cost it is not expedient to use NRM in single-use booster blocks and multi-use tugs for transport operations in near-Earth space, since the specific cost of delivering a useful load into high working orbits increases by a factor of 1.5 or more as compared with transport means based on oxygen-hydrogen rocket motors. At the same time, their use for the Martian expedition complex makes it possible to improve considerably the design characteristics of the complex (starting mass and expedition duration) as compared with non-nuclear motor systems.
ISSN:1063-4258
1573-8205
DOI:10.1007/s10512-018-0405-6