Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) offers high promise to reduce launch mass, decrease mission costs and increase mission effectiveness, particularly for crewed missions to the planets. However, NTP has…

This is a $749,750 Firm Fixed Price Definitive Contract awarded by the Shared Services Center, a civilian federal agency, to Little Prairie Services LLC, a small disadvantaged and veteran-owned business doing business as Desert Fox Engineering Services. The contract is funded through a Phase II SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) program and supports continued research and testing of nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) fuel elements. The objective is to develop models and simulation capabilities to document the safety of NTP systems during all launch phases, addressing key programmatic uncertainties around NTP cost, schedule, and safety. This effort builds on prior IR&D (Internal Research and Development) work and a $125,000 Phase I STTR (Small Business Technology Transfer) award from NASA. The contract has a small business set-aside designation, and the performance location is Edgewood, New Mexico.

Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) offers high promise to reduce launch mass, decrease mission costs and increase mission effectiveness, particularly for crewed missions to the planets. However, NTP has been plagued with high uncertainties in cost, schedule and safety, particularly launch safety. To reduce programmatic uncertainty, an unambiguous approach to documenting NTP safety prior to, during and after launch needs to be made. Until recently, the multi-physics models and computing power were not available to perform compelling analyses, and testing is prohibitively expensive, and unrevealing in many cases. This proposal directly addresses programmatic uncertainty by providing benchmarked, definitive product capable of documenting the safety of a NTP system during all launch phases. The proposal takes work performed by the SBC under IR & d which has performed detailed hydrocode modeling of a NTP impacting an unyielding surface from heights of 50 and 150 meters. To initiate the effort, IT is important to start with simple compaction model, which was accomplished in phase i with the taylor impact simulation. Instead of a single neutronics code, LPS demonstrated viability with three codes to better insure reliable results. Phase II will extend this work. IT will continue to update the sccte-2 NTR design and include any design modifications by NASA contractors. The NTR model will be updated to include important peripherals suchs as turbooo pump assemblies, thrust vector control hardware, plumbing and a propellant tank. These are essential items for a more realistic impact scenario. Further, during phase i, LPS determined there are a number of materials whose mechanical database is insufficient for unambiguous hydrocode simulations. LPS will deliver a comprhensive test program plan, costs and schedule to resolve these deficiencies. The technical readiness will be improved so end to end software elements are implemented and interfaced with existing system concepts.