A fusion-driven gas core nuclear rocket

Abstract

A magnetic confinement scheme is investigated as a potential propulsion device in which thrust is generated by a propellant heated by radiation emanating from a fusion plasma. The device in question is the gasdynamic mirror (GDM) machine in which a hot dense plasma is confined long enough to generate fusion energy while allowing a certain fraction of its charged particle population to go through one end to a direct converter. The energy of these particles is converted into electric power which is recirculated to sustain the steady state operation of the system. The injected power heats the plasma to thermonuclear temperatures where the resulting fusion energy appears a charged particle power, neutron power, and radiated power in the form of bremsstrahlung and synchrotron radiation. The neutron power can be converted through a thermal converter to electric power that can be combined with the direct converter power before being fed into the injector. The radiated power, on the other hand, can be used to heat a hydrogen propellant introduced into the system at a specified pressure and mass flow rate. This propellant can be pre-heated by regeneratively cooling the (mirror) nozzle or other components of the system if feasible, or by an electrothermal unit powered by portions of the recirculated power. Using a simple heat transfer model that ignores the heat flux to the wall, and assuming total absorption of radiation energy by the propellant it is shown that such a gas core rocket is capable of producing tens of kilonewtons of thrust and several thousands of seconds of specific impulse. It is also shown that the familiar Kelvin-Helmholtz instability which arises from the relative motion of the neutral hydrogen to the ionized fuel is not likely to occur in this system due to the presence of the confining magnetic field. © 1998 American Institute of Physics.