Space Reactor Launch Safety-An Acceptably Low Risk

Details Space Reactor Launch Safety-An Acceptably Low Risk Space Reactor Launch Safety-An Acceptably Low Risk

Jan 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008aipc..969..446w&link_type=abstract

SPACE TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL FORUM-STAIF 2008: 12th Conference on Thermophysics Applications in Microgravity;

Statistics

Applications

Nuclear Fission Power, Safety, Protection Systems, Safety, Radiation Monitoring, Accidents, And Dismantling, Moon, Lunar, Planetary, And Deep-Space Probes

Scientific paper

Results from previous space reactor and radioisotope power source risk assessments were combined to provide a scoping assessment of the possible risks from the launch of a reactor power system for use on the surface of the moon or Mars. It is assumed that future reactor power system launches would be subject to the same rigorous safety analysis and launch approval process as past nuclear payload launches. Using the same methodology that has gained approval of past launches, it was determined that the mission risk would be 0.029 person-rem worldwide which translates to 1.5*10-5 latent health effects. It is seen that the only significant sources of radiological risks from a non-operating reactor are possible inadvertent criticality accidents and the consequences of such events have been shown to be extremely low. Passive means such as spectral shift poisons or high reactor core length/diameter ratios have been shown to be able to reduce or eliminate the possibility of the more credible criticality accidents, such as flooding or sand burial. This paper advances the premise that, for design purposes, future space reactor surface-power designs should primarily address the credible accidents and not the hypothetical accidents. For launch accidents and other safety assessments, a probabilistic risk assessment approach will have to be used to assess the safety impact of all types of accidents, including the hypothetical accidents. With this approach, the design of the system will not be burdened with design features that are based on hypothetical criticality accidents having negligible risk. Moreover, there is little chance of convincingly demonstrating that these design features can substantially reduce or eliminated the risk associated with hypothetical criticality accidents.

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