Advanced Power Systems for Deep Space Missions

Poster Session
STARR
Poster Number
B-04
Project Author(s)
Terell Cathey
Institution
Oregon Institute of Technology
Project Description

This paper is a research review of a feasible solution I found to one of NASA’s mission directives, Advanced Power Generation, Storage, and transfer for deep space missions. In this paper I attempted to provide a broad overview of the new technology I researched and show how it can contribute to NASA’s goals. I summarized John Slough’s research into Fusion Driven Rockets and identified that the main problems associated with manned deep space missions are the time it takes to travel and the costs quickly becoming unfeasible. Fusion Driven Rockets solves the issue of time because its projected power output, specific power, and specific impulse are significantly greater than any other type of propulsion engine currently being used and/or researched and the costs are significantly less due to the lack of energy losses from converting the nuclear energy to electric and due to the propellent not needing to be stored inside a pressurized storage device. This technology is still being experimentally validated however initial results have shown that the characteristics of the propellent can accurately be predicted and all of the experimental data has agreed with the calculated data.

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