Tag: DFD
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INFUSE Workshop at PPPL
Our team Stephanie Thomas, Vice President of Princeton Satellite Systems (PSS), Christopher Galea, Research Scientist and myself Sangeeta P. Vinoth attended the INFUSE in-person Workshop held on Feb 27th and Feb 28th 2024 at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). The INFUSE workshop focused on the opportunities for networking during the poster sessions. During the poster…
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Final Titan Aircraft Paper Published in Acta Astronautica
The final version of our paper, “Nuclear Fusion Powered Titan Aircraft,” by Mr. Michael Paluszek, Ms. Annie Price, Ms. Zoe Koniaris, Dr. Christopher Galea, Ms. Stephanie Thomas, Dr. Samuel Cohen, and Ms. Rachel Stutz is now available, open access, on the Acta Astronautica website. As described in our earlier post, the paper discusses a mission…
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PSS appears on the Space Business Podcast to talk about nuclear fusion propulsion
Mike Paluszek and I appear on the newest episode of Space Business Podcast to talk about nuclear fusion propulsion, Direct Fusion Drive, and the Princeton Field-Reversed Configuration (PFRC) concept! We had a great conversation with the host of this podcast, Rafael Roettgen, who asked us thoughtful questions. In this episode, we discuss topics such as:…
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Our Titan Mission Paper preprint is now online in Acta Astronautica
Our IAC paper on a fusion-powered Titan mission is now available in preprint on Acta Astronautica online, with the final version to come soon! Our mission concept utilizes two PFRC reactors: one configured as a Direct Fusion Drive rocket for the journey to Titan, and a second configured as a power source for the electric…
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Crowdfunding for fusion development closing at the end of April
Our crowdfunding opportunity at is scheduled to close at the end of the month. We’ve raised over $100K so far to support fusion development and specifically, the PFRC-2 experiment at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory as we close in on our ion heating milestone. This is the last two weeks to invest in our raise on…
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Producing Terrestrial Power with Helium-3 from Uranus using PFRC/DFD
Our latest paper on DFD applications, “A Fusion-Propelled Transportation System to ProduceTerrestrial Power Using Helium-3 From Uranus”, is now available from AIAA. This paper was part of the Future Flight Propulsion track and AIAA SciTech 2023. For those with AIAA membership, there is a video recording of the presentation as well! Download the paper here.…
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Bright plasma pulses achieved for various gases at a new frequency in the PFRC-2
We have been operating the Princeton Field-Reversed Configuration-2 (PFRC-2) at the new, lower frequency of 1.8 MHz since mid-November. We have blogged about some developments towards operating at this new frequency including installation of the new capacitors as well as power supplies and holders for the belt coils. The frequency we describe is that of…
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NIF: Net (Scientific) Gain Achieved in Inertial Fusion! What is the impact on PFRC?
The internet was abuzz last week with the news that the National Ignition Facility had achieved that elusive goal: a fusion experiment that achieved net (scientific) energy gain. This facility, which uses 192 lasers to compress a peppercorn-sized pellet of deuterium and tritium, released 3 MJ of energy from 2 MJ of input heat. We…
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Annie Price Presents, “Nuclear Fusion Powered Titan Aircraft” at IAC 2022 in Paris France
Annie Price, who was an intern at Princeton Satellite Systems during the summer of 2021, presented our paper, “Nuclear Fusion Powered Titan Aircraft,” at session C4,10-3.5 which was the Joint Session on Advanced and Nuclear Power and Propulsion Systems. There were many interesting papers. One was on generating electric power in the magnetic nozzle of…
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Installation of the new capacitors in the Princeton Field-Reversed Configuration-2
Further upgrades of the Princeton Field Reversed Configuration-2 (PFRC-2) are underway with the goal of achieving the milestone of ion heating. The PFRC-2 is predicted to have substantial ion heating once the RF antenna frequency is lowered and the magnetic field is increased. To lower the RF frequency, we have installed additional capacitors in the…