Space Ops: Powering National Security Space With Nuclear

Over the past half-century, the U.S. government has introduced more than 20 efforts to harness nuclear power and propulsion for space operations, only to cancel each one of them.

Eric Brown, vice president for mission strategy and advanced capabilities at Lockheed Martin Space, believes now is the time to break that cycle.

Space-faring nations and the commercial industry are looking to perform missions beyond geostationary orbit—into cislunar and beyond—which will require substantially more powerful energy sources. “That’s where we see that this time around, it’s absolutely crucial that we see the success of nuclear power and propulsion,” Brown told reporters Nov. 20 at Lockheed’s headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.

The promise of nuclear lies in its energy density: One gummy-bear-size piece of Uranium-235 possesses around the same amount of energy as one train car of coal, 500 barrels of oil or 1.6 Saturn V upper stages, according to BWX Technologies, a nuclear manufacturing and technologies company.

That’s the power required for U.S. military spacecraft to “maneuver without regret,” said Lt. Gen. (ret.) John Shaw, who was deputy U.S. Space Command commander. And that is what makes nuclear power “absolutely crucial” for national security and exploration missions, Brown explained.

“Right now, we’re basically hamstrung when we design a lot of these exploration missions by various orbital dynamics and the availability of fuel,” he said.

Nuclear-powered spacecraft will enable a safer flight, with more opportunities to abort the mission if something goes wrong and allow for greater maneuverability, Brown stressed.

Once deployed, nuclear propulsion technology can be applied across a broad range of mission areas—from human space exploration, to in-space debris removal, to dynamic space operations.

Lockheed and BWX are strategic partners for several U.S. government programs that seek to harness both nuclear thermal and electric propulsion for civil space missions, but that also have viability for national security space missions.

The DARPA-funded Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program seeks to showcase the viability of a nuclear thermal rocket in orbit, with a targeted launch date in 2027.

On the nuclear electric propulsion side, the Air Force Research Laboratory contracted with Lockheed for the Joint Emergent Technology Supplying On-Orbit Nuclear High Power program to explore relevant technologies and spacecraft design, while NASA’s Fission Surface Power program seeks to generate power on the Moon via a miniaturized reactor.

For Brown, this trifecta of programs offers “a greater jump” toward nuclear propulsion than has been seen before, buoyed by consistent funding and vocal support from Congress.

“I think we’re in a really good place, particularly because it’s not all dependent on a single line item in order to reach success,” he added. “It’s the collection of these three programs together that’s giving it a greater energy and emphasis.”