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Completed TRL 3 (started at 3, targeting 4)
Existing FY25 scope that has high return on investment across multiple fission-based disciplines, with a focus on risk reduction and regulatory path finding.
NTP is an open-ended project focused on developing enabling technologies for nuclear thermal propulsion and demonstrating the robust functionality of those technologies through ground and flight testing. NTP systems have capabilities that can be directly leveraged, or readily evolved, for future NASA missions that include cis-lunar operating systems, deep-space science systems, and small and large cargo transportation systems for Mars human exploration. The technology challenges NTP is focused on solving are primarily driven by the extreme operational requirements for the fission reactor. Technology maturation investments are focused on finding solutions to the technology gaps for a reactor operating at temperatures exceeding 2800 K with a flowing hydrogen environment. The coupled effects between an operating reactor, integrated turbine machinery, and the thermal/neutronic balance also require investment in modeling and simulation capabilities to design NTP systems and predict how they will work in space.
The completion of the Cold Flow Test (CFT) Engineering Development Unit (EDU) testing provides data for validation of a variety of fluid flow, instrumentation, and space reactor control model and results in a return on the investment in CFT design and fabrication that was completed earlier in the FY2025.
Listed on TechPort itself — the most direct way to ask about this specific project.
This is early/mid-stage (TRL 3) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.
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