nuclear space engine

[dragon]

Specialists of “Machine-Building Plant” in the suburban Elecrtostal constructed the first fuel element for nuclear engines (propulsion system of the spacecraft, which includes a whole range of on-board systems of the spacecraft).

According to the Director and General Designer of “NIKIET” Yuri Dragunov the nuclear engine should be ready in 2018.

The nuclear engine will be used for deep space missions and long-term operations in orbit. In particular, the establishment of this facility will dramatically reduce the time period required for Mars mission.

link

[SpottedKitty]

Not a lot of detail there, and the Russlish translation isn't helping. Several "nuclear" spaceship engine concepts have been worked out on paper over the last 50-odd years, I wonder which this is? From the description, it could be almost anything except an Orion (which would probably cause the entire non-Russian-speaking world to excrete a collective brick anyway).

[MrDakka]

Its probably an RTG for perhaps an ion engine. I doubt it will be a nuclear thermal rocket, but if it is then maybe it'll kick off another space race?

[Sea Skimmer]

If this is what they were talking about in 2012-2013 then its an actual nuclear reactor in the 1 MW thermal range, it would use a gas turbine cycle to make electricity for ion drive. RTGs don't have a high enough power to weight ratio to be all that useful for speeding up a manned Mars mission. They are appealing for propelling unmanned probes to the outer planets.

[SpottedKitty]

They are appealing for propelling unmanned probes to the outer planets.

Now that does sound interesting. I think there have only been two long-endurance missions so far with an ion drive, Deep Space 1 and Dawn, and they both use solar panels. I wonder what kind of flight profile New Horizons (currently less than a year out from Pluto) might have been able to use with an ion drive...

[Sea Skimmer]

Wonky I'd imagine, since typical RTGs fuels loose 50% of power after 10 years, and that's 10 years since fuel fabrication not launch, and it doesn't matter how much you do or don't use the thing. So even sped up several fold the craft is going to have a serious lost of thrust by the time it shows up independent of ablation of the ion drive, and generally still going to need to engage in gravity capture.

With the power from an actual nuclear reactor you can basically do whatever the hell you want if the ion drive is robust enough. When you put in the control rods the energy losses via decay products become minor in comparison to total thermal output, meaning you can have tremendous endurance. That's one of several reasons why Russia wants to pursue the technology, NASA has its own program too but it doesn't have enough money to do anything but computer simulations. NASA already had to kill off its intermediate technology, a Sterling engine powered by an RTG (four times power to weight of thermocouple RTG) for lack of funding.

[Edi]

Kaku of the Monsoon's trolling bullshit split to the HoS.