REACTOR POWER IN SPACE
AHEAD OF THEIR TIME

ORNL won a NASA research grant to develop a liquid-metal Rankine power conversion system concept for use in space. The roots of this project go back to ORNL research in the 1960s.

Artist's concept of a multimegawatt Rankine reactor power system that ORNL is developing for the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter mission.

A space reactor power technology first championed by ORNL some 40 years ago is receiving attention again as NASA seeks improved, high-performance space power technologies. In 2002, ORNL competed for and won a NASA research grant to develop a liquid-metal Rankine power conversion system concept for use in space. The new project is led by Grady Yoder of ORNL's Nuclear Science and Technology Division.

The Rankine power conversion approach, which is employed by virtually every power reactor, uses a liquid coolant that is boiled by energy from the reactor. The resulting vapor is fed to a turbine-alternator combination to produce electricity. Unlike terrestrial reactors, which use water as the working fluid, space reactors would employ liquid metals such as lithium, potassium, or cesium.

"The focus of ORNL's research project is to design and fly a small-scale Rankine power conversion 'phenomenology demonstrator prototype' in space," says Sherrell Greene, who leads ORNL's space fission power activities. "If successful, the project will demonstrate that two-phase, or liquid-vapor, phenomenology inherent in the Rankine cycle can be managed and controlled in the microgravity climate of space. A second goal is to update the design of space Rankine power conversion systems first pioneered by Art Fraas and others at ORNL during the 1960s. The roots of this project go back to SNAP-50 and ORNL's Medium Power Reactor Experiment in the 1960s. Art and his team were just ahead of their time."

Beginning of Article
 

Web site provided by Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Communications and External Relations.
[ORNL Home] [CAER Home] [Privacy and Security Disclaimer]