Kilopower, NASA's Small Fission Power System for Science and Human Exploration

Gibson, Marc A.; Mason, Lee S.; Bowman, Cheryl L.; Poston, David I.; McClure, Patrick; Creasy, John; Robinson, Chris

doi:10.2514/6.2014-3458

Cited by 35 publications

(18 citation statements)

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“…For these reasons, the 1-kW(electric) configuration was chosen as the baseline for the KRUSTY demonstration. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9] However, to ensure that the Kilopower Project addressed the technology challenges across the range of applications, a study of a Mars 10-kW(electric) concept was undertaken in the first year of the project to identify those technology challenges that would need to be addressed after the KRUSTY demonstration and to define the effort required to address them. A preliminary Mars concept was developed, and requirements for this system were defined in partnership with NASA's Human Spaceflight Architecture Team.…”

Section: Iia Flight Concept Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kilopower Project: The KRUSTY Fission Power Experiment and Potential Missions

et al. 2020

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The Kilopower Project was initiated by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate/ Game Changing Development Program in fiscal year 2015 to demonstrate subsystem-level technology readiness of small space fission power in a relevant environment (Technology Readiness Level 5) for space science and human exploration power needs. The Kilopower Project centerpiece is the Kilowatt Reactor Using Stirling TechnologY (KRUSTY) test, which consists of the development and testing of a ground technology demonstrator of a 1-kW(electric)-class fission power system (FPS). The technologies to be developed and validated by KRUSTY are extensible to space FPSs from 1 to 10 kW(electric), which can enable modular surface FPSs for human exploration as well as higherpower future potential deep space science missions. The KRUSTY demonstration is cofunded by NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration. The KRUSTY demonstration in the National Critical Experiment Research Center's Device Assembly Facility was completed in the first quarter of 2018.

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Section: Iia Flight Concept Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kilopower Project: The KRUSTY Fission Power Experiment and Potential Missions

et al. 2020

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“…Deep space exploration missions take place over several years, and maintenance during a mission is both unrealistic and expensive. Accordingly, static nuclear reactors with high stability, long‐term endurance, high reliability, ultra‐long service life, and superior environmental adaptability are ideally suited to support future space exploitation missions …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Accordingly, static nuclear reactors with high stability, long-term endurance, high reliability, ultra-long service life, and superior environmental adaptability are ideally suited to support future space exploitation missions. 2 A static nuclear reactor with static thermoelectric (TE) energy conversion and passive heat pipe heat transfer is extremely safe and reliable, because there are no moving parts in the reactor cooling system and the power conversion system. Compared with other energy conversion technologies, TE energy conversion has attracted increased attention due to its merits of high reliability, no noise, small volume, and light weight.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental investigations on start‐up performance of static nuclear reactor thermal prototype

et al. 2020

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Summary Nuclear power is most suited to satisfy the energy demands of future deep space exploration. In this paper, we propose a static nuclear reactor (the nuclear static thermoelectric reactor [NUSTER]), which offers the advantages of superior modularization, simplification, a fully static state, and passive operation. Based on the conceptual design of a static nuclear reactor, an electrical heating principle prototype was designed and fabricated to validate the feasibility of the fully static passive energy conversion concept. Skutterudite thermoelectric generators (TEGs) were used for static energy conversion, and potassium heat pipes were employed for passive heat transfer. The system start‐up performance, restart performance, and thermoelectric performance were investigated using the thermal principle prototype. We proposed a new approach to analyze the heat pipe start‐up process based on the heat transfer performance. The experimental results indicated that the restart process can be used to reduce the start‐up time, because the low heat flux stage is avoided. During the start‐up process, the TEGs hot side heat flux and temperature difference were gradually established, and the TEGs open circuit voltage and power density gradually increased. A maximum open circuit voltage and power density of 38.2 V and 0.92 W/cm2, respectively, were achieved when the TEGs temperature difference reached 575°C. The high performance of the thermal principle prototype demonstrated the feasibility of the NUSTER conceptual design, and the experimental data can serve as a valuable reference for optimization of static reactor designs.

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“…Stirling cycle applications include cryo-coolers 9,10 , natural gas co-generation units 11,12,13 , solar-dynamic power conversion 14, 15,16 , and nuclear dynamic power conversion 17,18,19,20,21 . They are typically used in applications which have high fuel costs or in systems that require closed-cycle operation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They are a key technology in NASA's Radioisotope Power System program because their high efficiency potentially enables NASA to increase the number of missions it can fly over the coming decades using the limited supply of plutonium-238 20,21,22 . They also trade favorably in low to moderate power level fission power applications because their high efficiency requires less heat input from the reactor and reduces heat rejection requirements, reducing the mass of the reactor shield and the radiators 17,18,19,23 . Stirling engines have been considered for use in several terrestrial applications including automotive engines, concentrated solar power plants, and residential co-generation systems, especially when rising fossil fuel costs indicate that their high efficiency can make them economical.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving Power Density of Free-Piston Stirling Engines

Briggs

Prahl

Loparo

2016

14th International Energy Conversion Engineering Conference

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Analyses and experiments demonstrate the potential benefits of optimizing piston and displacer motion in a free-piston Stirling Engine. Isothermal analysis shows the theoretical limits of power density improvement due to ideal motion in ideal Stirling engines. More realistic models based on nodal analysis show that ideal piston and displacer waveforms are not optimal, often producing less power than engines that use sinusoidal piston and displacer motion. Constrained optimization using nodal analysis predicts that Stirling engine power density can be increased by as much as 58% using optimized higher harmonic piston and displacer motion. An experiment is conducted in which an engine designed for sinusoidal motion is forced to operate with both second and third harmonics, resulting in a piston power increase of as much as 14%. Analytical predictions are compared to experimental data and show close agreement with indirect thermodynamic power calculations, but poor agreement with direct electrical power measurements.

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Kilopower, NASA's Small Fission Power System for Science and Human Exploration

Cited by 35 publications

References 0 publications

Kilopower Project: The KRUSTY Fission Power Experiment and Potential Missions

Kilopower Project: The KRUSTY Fission Power Experiment and Potential Missions

Experimental investigations on start‐up performance of static nuclear reactor thermal prototype

Improving Power Density of Free-Piston Stirling Engines

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