The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Lewis Research Center (NASA LeRC) is developing a Fortran–based model of a complete nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) vehicle to be used for piloted or cargo missions to the Moon or Mars. The proposed vehicle will use either a Brayton or K‐Rankine power conversion cycle, and either ion or magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thrusters. In support of this effort, Rocketdyne evaluated various power management and distribution (PMAD) approaches and selected a low‐frequency design that is based on the direct use of the alternator voltage and frequency for power transmission. This approach was compared with dc and high‐frequency ac designs, and selected on the basis of mass, efficiency, and qualitative assessments of power quality, reliability and development costs. This low‐frequency architecture will be used as the reference in future NEP PMAD studies and for the subsequent Fortran model development.
Multimegawatt dynamic NEP PMAD study
10th SymposiumùSpace Nuclear Power and Propulsion ; 1993 ; Albuquerque, NM, USA
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 271 , 3 ; 1197-1202
1993-01-20
6 pages
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
POWER RANGE 100−1000 KW , ALGORITHMS , PROPULSION SYSTEMS , DESIGN , MARS SPACE PROBES , BRAYTON CYCLE , THRUSTERS , POWER DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS , SPACE PROPULSION REACTORS , PLASMA , POWER RANGE 01−10 MW , ION PROPULSION , TEMPERATURE RANGE 0273−0400 K , COMPUTER CODES , RANKINE CYCLE , ELECTRIC POTENTIAL , TEMPERATURE RANGE 0400−1000 K
Multimegawatt Dynamic NEP PMAD Study
NTIS | 1992
|Multimegawatt dynamic NEP PMAD study
NTRS | 1992
|SAE Technical Papers | 1999
|PMAD for the Next Generation Spacecraft
NTRS | 1995
|Toward Intelligent PMAD Systems
SAE Technical Papers | 2002
|