B. Panda, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL
In-space propulsion concepts utilize liquid hydrogen as propellant in nuclear rocket engines. In order to maximize the thrust obtained from a unit weight of propellant, the nuclear core of the engine would have to be operated at extremely high temperatures. High melting point uranium compounds are generally used as the core materials for this application. While earlier NASA/DOE efforts utilized graphite base materials containing uranium compounds, in large part, for ease of fabrication, current efforts at Marshall Space Flight Center are assessing the utility of tungsten matrix cermet and carbide materials for such purpose. Processing these materials is difficult due to the inherently high-temperature melting points of these materials. The paper describes earlier processing and test efforts for graphite base materials as well as the current techniques and their associated challenges.
In-space propulsion concepts utilize liquid hydrogen as propellant in nuclear rocket engines. In order to maximize the thrust obtained from a unit weight of propellant, the nuclear core of the engine would have to be operated at extremely high temperatures. High melting point uranium compounds are generally used as the core materials for this application. While earlier NASA/DOE efforts utilized graphite base materials containing uranium compounds, in large part, for ease of fabrication, current efforts at Marshall Space Flight Center are assessing the utility of tungsten matrix cermet and carbide materials for such purpose. Processing these materials is difficult due to the inherently high-temperature melting points of these materials. The paper describes earlier processing and test efforts for graphite base materials as well as the current techniques and their associated challenges.
