Nuclear fusion is legendarily difficult to harness nobody has yet succeeded in demonstrating a full-scale, commercially viable fusion reactor. For example, a fusion-equipped Pluto orbiter could beam down power to a lander on the dwarf planet's surface and also send high-definition video back to Earth, Thomas said. That means a DFD mission would be able to do a great deal of science work after reaching its destination.
The DFD will tap into that power, using a "Brayton cycle" engine to convert much of the heat into electricity. This propellant is directed out a nozzle at the back of the engine, producing thrust.Īll that heat translates to a lot of power - likely between 1 and 10 megawatts, Thomas said. The fusing plasma heats up cool propellant flowing outside the confinement region. Atoms of these elements will fuse within this plasma, generating lots of energy - and very little dangerous radiation, Thomas said. The DFD's interior will feature a magnetically contained hot plasma of helium-3 and deuterium, a special "heavy" type of hydrogen that has one neutron in its nucleus (as opposed to "normal" hydrogen, which has no neutrons). The DFD is basically a PFRC reactor with an open end, through which exhaust flows to generate thrust, Thomas explained. The DFD is a variant of the Princeton Field-Reversed Configuration (PFRC), a fusion-reactor concept invented in the early 2000s by Samuel Cohen of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).
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