TRANSPORT ASSESSMENT

STAR-C IS A HIGH PERFORMANCE NUCLEAR SPACE POWER SYSTEM THAT CAN BE UTILIZED BY NEAR TERM MILITARY SPACE PROGRAMS FOR SURVEILLANCE AND COMMUNICATIONS WHICH OPERATE IN THE POWER RANGE OF A FEW TO 30 KWE. IT IS A SMALL, LOW MASS, POWER SYSTEM THAT IS EASILY INTEGRATED INTO THE SPACECRAFT AND IT HAS VERY HIGH SURVIVABILITY CHARACTERISTICS. STATIC HEAT TRANSFER AND REDUNDANT, STATIC POWER CONVERSION PROVIDED HIGHLY RELIABLE PERFORMANCE. THE EXCELLENT OVERALL PERFORMANCE OF THE STAR-C IS ACCOMPANIED BY THE USE OF RELATIVELY HIGH TEMPERATURES IN THE REACTOR CORE. AS PART OF THE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM IT WILL BE NECESSARY TO DEMONSTRATE, AMONG OTHER THINGS, THAT THERE WILL BE NO SIGNIFICANT MASS TRANSPORT OF MATERIALS FROM THE REACTOR CORE. THE DESIGN OF THE REACTOR CORE AND THE SELECTION OF MATERIALS HAS BEEN SPECIFICALLY BASED ON MINIMIZING THE TRANSPORT OF CORE MATERIALS.THE PURPOSE OF THIS SBIR PROPOSAL IS TO EVALUATE THE EXTENT OF POSSIBLE MASS TRANSPORT AND THE IDENTIFICATION OF VERIFICATION EXPERIMENTS. MODELS WILL BE DEVELOPED FOR DESIGNING THE SYSTEM TO MEET LIFETIME AND PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS.