Jakarta –
NASA and the US military plan to launch a nuclear-powered spacecraft into Earth orbit in late 2025 or early 2026.
The project, known as DRACO (Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations), aims to test nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) in space.
Nuclear propulsion is a potentially revolutionary technology that is touted as helping humanity establish life on Mars and other distant worlds. The DRACO spacecraft will be developed and built by Lockheed Martin.
“We’re going to put it all together, fly this demonstration, collect a lot of great data that we believe will truly usher in a new era for the United States and for humanity, in support of space and exploration missions,” said Kirk Shireman, vice president of Lockheed Martin Lunar. Exploration Campaigns, quoted from Space.com.
DRACO is actually nothing new. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) started the program in 2021, and NASA joined in early 2023.
NASA’s involvement should come as no surprise, given the US national space agency’s interest in NTP technology has been around for a long time. For example, NASA aims to launch a manned Mars mission aboard a nuclear-powered spacecraft by 1979, through a program called NERVA. Unfortunately, this mission did not materialize, so NERVA was canceled.
Currently NASA is still eyeing Mars and aims to get astronauts to the Red Planet in the late 2030s or early 2040s. So far, NASA still views nuclear thermal propulsion as a key breakthrough that could make this goal more achievable by cutting travel time to and from Mars.
Nuclear thermal rockets carry tiny fission reactors, which release tremendous amounts of heat as they split atoms. This heat is then applied to the propellant gas, which expands and is funneled into space through a nozzle to create thrust.
This process is different from that used by radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), the nuclear technology that has flown aboard cruisers since the dawn of the space age. Instead of providing propulsion, RTGs use the heat of radioactive decay to generate electricity, which then powers the spacecraft’s instruments, motors, and other equipment.
In a previous DRACO update, DARPA and NASA said they aimed to launch the first demonstration program in space in 2027. But that timetable may have been pushed back.
The spacecraft will head into a relatively high orbit around Earth – likely between 700 and 2,000 kilometers. From such a height, it would take at least 300 years for the DRACO demonstrator to fall back to Earth via atmospheric drag, long enough to ensure that all of its nuclear fuel is used up on descent.
The mission team will also work hard to ensure safety on the way. The DRACO vehicle’s nuclear engine will only be activated once it reaches orbit.
During launch, the engine will be equipped with a ‘poison wire’, a piece of metal that absorbs neutrons, to prevent them from starting a chain reaction. The poison wire acts like control rods in a nuclear power reactor on Earth. DRACO is expected to operate in orbit for several months.
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2023-07-31 08:15:35
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