Nuclear spacecraft Nuclear-powered rockets could be the pinnacle of this century’s space race. Concepts and designs for nuclear-powered rockets have been around for more than 50 years, but they never made it out of the experimental stage. Despite its bold ambitions to go where no one has gone before, America’s recent move into nuclear propulsion is aimed at giving it an edge in the domestic space race. A new enemy in orbit, People’s Republic of China.
The latest nuclear rocket project has been awarded by NASA and DARPA to Lockheed Martin for 2023. $499 million contract They are building a demonstration rocket for agile Earth orbit operations. The very catchy acronym DRACO will be about 49 feet long and 17.7 feet in diameter to fit on a Vulcan Centaur rocket that will launch from the surface. Centaur will soon be Boeing Starliner. Ars Technical The U.S. Space Command explained the rationale for DRACO in a presentation to Congress.
DARPA’s website states that its sole mission has always been to invest in breakthrough technologies for national security. What does a nuclear-powered spacecraft have to do with national security? The military’s view was hinted at in testimony before Congress in April 2021 by General James Dickinson, commander of the U.S. Space Force.
“Beijing is pursuing space superiority through space attack systems,” he said, referring to intelligence gathered by China’s Zhongxiang-17 satellite, which is equipped with a robotic arm that can be used to grab other satellites. This may sound like a crazy exaggeration, but it was enough to get approval for a nuclear-powered spacecraft.
The appeal of nuclear rockets is their efficiency. They only need to carry hydrogen as fuel and don’t need an oxidizer to ignite in the vacuum of space, making them twice as efficient as traditional chemical rockets. This efficiency can be used to reach very high speeds. DRACO is intended to be a testbed for a rapid response rocket. Between the Earth and the Moon Military deterrence in space.
The only catch is that the rocket needs to carry the fissile material for the reactor: weapons-grade uranium. DRACO uses a new fuel called Highly Assayed Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU), which is less enriched and much harder to make a nuclear weapon out of. No danger to the public That’s because the Centaur chemical rocket will be used to launch it from the launch pad.
Even ignoring the impending demise of the International Space Station, it’s hard not to get excited about space exploration at this point. NASA’s Artemis Program They are building a lunar base and a lunar orbital base, and are in the midst of a permanent return to the moon. Mars and the Rest of the Solar System That might be the next topic.
