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SAFE SERIES REACTOR (Safe Affordable Fission Engine) is a type of
Heatpipe Power System (HPS) reactors are compact fast reactors producing
up to 100 kWe for about ten years to power a spacecraft or planetary
surface vehicle. They have been developed since 1994 at the Los Alamos
National Laboratory as a robust and low technical risk system with an
emphasis on high reliability and safety. They employ heatpipes to
transfer energy from the reactor core to make electricity using Stirling
or Brayton cycle converters can be used in Nuclear Electrical Propulsion
(NEP).
Energy from fission is conducted from the fuel pins to the heatpipes
filled with sodium vapor which carry it to the heat exchangers and
thence in hot gas to the power conversion systems to make electricity.
The gas is 72% helium and 28% xenon.
The reactor itself contains a number of heatpipe modules with the fuel.
Each module has its central heatpipe with rhenium-clad fuel sleeves
arranged around it. They are the same diameter and contain 97% enriched
uranium nitride fuel, all within the cladding of the module. The modules
form a compact hexagonal core.
Control is by six stainless steel clad beryllium drums each 11 or 13 cm
diameter with boron carbide forming a 120 degree arc on each. The drums
fit within the six sections of the beryllium radial neutron reflector
surrounding the core, and rotate to effect control, moving the boron
carbide in or out.
Shielding is dependent on the mission or application, but lithium
hydride in stainless steel cans is the main neutron shielding..
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