CLEVELAND — Advocates of nuclear power systems for lunar exploration are calling on NASA to seek out ways to proceed development amid fiscal challenges and competing priorities.
NASA chosen three teams in June 2022 for phase 1 studies of fission surface power systems, small nuclear reactors intended to support later phases of the Artemis lunar exploration campaign. The teams, led by Lockheed Martin, Westinghouse and IX, a three way partnership of Intuitive Machines and X-Energy, received $5 million each for initial design studies.
The main focus of those efforts is to design a 40-kilowatt reactor that weighs not more than six metric tons and may operate for 10 years, said Lindsay Kaldon, Fission Surface Power (FSP) program manager at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, during a panel on the American Astronautical Society’s Glenn Memorial Symposium July 18. NASA also requires the usage of high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, to handle nuclear non-proliferation concerns.
NASA and the Department of Energy (DOE), which partnered with NASA on the project, levied few other requirements on the businesses. “We’re capable of get really progressive ideas from the three partnerships,” she said. “We’re capable of see some out-of-the-box considering.”
The FSP program plans a second phase to show one in every of the designs into flight-certified hardware. NASA has not set a date for releasing a request for proposals for that second phase. NASA can also be working by itself government reference design in cooperation with DOE.
The uncertainty concerning the schedule for the following phase of FSP has some in industry concerned. “We’ve got loads of momentum without delay in nuclear space,” said Vince Bilardo, an industry consultant supporting the IX team, citing not only the FSP work but various initiatives to develop nuclear thermal propulsion and nuclear electric propulsion.
Nevertheless, he said he was apprehensive that “political realities” resembling a divided Congress would make it difficult for NASA to maneuver ahead with the following phase of FSP. “So, you’ve got at the least two fiscal years of authorizations and appropriations in front of us here,” he said, “where it’s going to be potentially very difficult for NASA to secure a program latest start for phase two of Fission Surface Power.” He estimated that phase of this system could cost a billion dollars over 4 to eight years.
That program also has to compete with all the other elements of Artemis for funding. “In that current environment, my tackle that’s it’s going to be a challenge for NASA to secure formal latest start project authorizations for these different Artemis elements,” he said.
He urged NASA to seek out ways to increase the phase one contracts to reduce any gaps between that work and the phase two competition. Doing so, he said, would avoid “a spot in coverage that causes us on the industry side to should reassign our teams.”
The agency should fund work on enabling technologies for fission power systems, Bilardo argued, which may be done in parallel to design studies because those technologies will likely be utilized in almost any design. “We all know what these systems have to appear to be, and we all know what the list of enabling technologies is,” he said.
There may be some synergies between fission surface power and designs for nuclear propulsion, resembling power conversion for nuclear electric propulsion systems. He really useful that designs for 40-kilowatt surface reactors be scalable to 100 kilowatts or more, enabling use in nuclear propulsion.
Despite the challenges, advocates of FSP see the technologies as essential for long-term lunar exploration due to lunar night that lasts for 2 weeks. “You would like something for the astronauts to do aside from drive around on a rover for a pair weeks after which get back within the lander and return home,” Bilardo said. “We wish to go to remain this time.”