Superconducting Coils for Small Nuclear Fusion Rocket Engines

This proposal focuses on the superconducting coils subsystem, a critical subsystem for the PFRC reactor and Direct Fusion Drive and other fusion and electric propulsion technologies. Our goal will be to design space coils using the latest high temperature superconductors. The coils will be operated at medium temperature, between 20 and 30 K, which eases the cooling requirements and temperature margins compared to 4K low-temperature conductors. This also increases the critical currents providing more margin for neutron radiation damage, possibly reducing shielding. The coils will have highly efficient cooling systems, be low mass and require minimum structural mass. Bath cooling and conduit cooling will be compared. There is likely an optimum operating temperature which minimizes the mass of both the conductors, shielding, and cooling systems. Given the rapid advancement of HTS materials determining the feasibility of such an optimal coil design requires detailed research into the state-of-the-art. Our partner, PPPL, will provide expertise on coil specifications and magnet design. PPPL is the only institution in the world where active research on the physics and technology of small, steady-state fusion devices is being performed. PSS will manage the design process and study closed loop cooling issues. We will design a Phase II experiment to build one or more 2 Tesla coils and potentially integrate them into the existing plasma experiment at PPPL. Our example mission will be a Neptune orbiter which is on the NASA roadmap as a high priority mission and present a challenging on-orbit radiation environment.

A small fusion engine such as Direct Fusion Drive would be useful for almost any deep space mission, as well as inner space missions such as Lagrange points or manned Mars missions. The superconducting coils have applications to scientific payloads as well as other advanced propulsion concepts. For example, the AMS-02 experiment for the ISS had a low-temperature superconducting coil option which was built and tested, but swapped out for a traditional magnet with a longer lifetime when the flight opportunity changed. The VASIMR electric thruster requires superconducting coils. There has been considerable research on using superconducting coils for radiation shielding and they may also be useful for space materials processing and and precision formation flying.

There are many military and civil applications of the engine and the coils. Military space applications include high-power Earth satellites with radar, laser, or communications payloads. There are wider applications including generators for wind turbines, high efficiency motors, particle accelerators, energy storage, and terrestrial fusion reactors. This project would contribute greatly to this wider body of work.

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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