NASA and Defense Department partner to launch first nuclear-powered rocket
Rachel Schilke
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The United States is looking to make history and launch the first nuclear-powered rocket engine into space in as soon as four years.
NASA announced on Wednesday that the agency and the Department of Defense are partnering on a $499 million project called the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, or DRACO, to develop and launch a nuclear-powered rocket engine into space as early as 2027.
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“NASA is looking to go to Mars with this system,” Anthony Calomino, the NASA engineer leading the space nuclear propulsion technology program, told ARS Technica. “And this test is really going to give us that foundation.”
Traditionally, rockets use chemical propulsion to enter space, but those types of rockets do not move around the solar system efficiently due to the amount of fuel it requires. A trip to Mars on chemical propulsion would take at least seven to nine months.
A rocket using nuclear propulsion could cut that time frame in two, bringing astronauts to Mars in three to four months and reducing the time astronauts spend exposed to deep space.
Lockheed Martin has been selected by NASA to design, build, and test a nuclear propulsion system for DRACO. BWX Technologies, based in Virginia, will build the nuclear fission reactor that sits at the heart of the rocket engine.
The nuclear reactor would heat hydrogen from -420 degrees Fahrenheit to 4,000 degrees, using hot gas generated from a nozzle to generate thrust. The creation of this type of reactor could also power military satellites, allowing them to move rapidly in orbit around Earth.
While the DRACO project is new, the concept is not. NASA, the Air Force, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency contemplated using atomic bomb explosions to accelerate spacecraft in the 1950s and 60s with Project Orion.
Projects Rover and NERVA looked to develop nuclear-thermal engines similar to those being designed for DRACO. For those projects, 23 reactors were built but none were ever launched into space. The difference between DRACO and NERVA is the type of uranium used — NERVA used weapons-grade uranium and DRACO will use a less-enriched amount of the element.
NASA has considered nuclear reactors for trips to Jupiter, Saturn, and other planets beyond, as well as to power a lunar base.
“The technical capabilities, including early safety protocols, remain viable today,” Tabitha Dodson, the DRACO project manager, said in a news briefing on Wednesday.
The DRACO project will conclude with a flight test, which is currently scheduled for late 2025 or early 2026, according to Kirk Shireman, vice president of Lockheed Martin.
The demonstration would most likely reach an altitude between 435 miles and 1,240 miles, Dodson said — high enough to ensure it stays in orbit for more than 300 years, which is long enough for radioactive elements in the reactor fuel to decay to safe levels.
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The reactor would not turn on until it reached space to minimize the chances for a radioactive incident on Earth, Dodson said.
“DRACO has already done all of our preliminary analyses across the entire spectrum of possibilities for accidents and found that we’re all the way down in the low probability and all the way down in the teeny tiny amount of release,” Dodson said.