A Conceptual design study of lunar nuclear power plants

Nomura, Norio; Haga, Kazuo; not registered; Seino, Hiroshi ; not registered

Within a framework of transportable reactor study, a conceptual design of power source to lunar base or space station has been performed. In this paper, structure and capability of compornents for a lunar base power plant are described. It is shown that SPECTRA-L is applicable to it. This is a 300kWe reactor, which needs no refueling during ten years operation. It is found that total weight is less than ten tons and the decay heat can be removed by natural circulation. The optimum construction method on lunar base is also proposed. A concept of a 3000kWe LUnar Base Activities Reactor (LUBAR) is also introduced. LUBAR is composed of one reactor unit and two generation units. The reactor section has three reactors. This plant can be operated for thirty years by changing the reactors. The optimized construction method is also proposed for this plant. The key technologies to realize these plants are described with the tentative R&D schedule.