Playback by an artist of a DRACO spaceship.
DARPA
The Pentagon’s research and development group on Monday awarded a trio of contracted companies to build and demonstrate a nuclear-based propulsion system on a spacecraft in orbit by 2025.
General Atomics, the Lockheed Martin space company, and Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin, have won awards from DARPA, the Agency for Advanced Defense Research Projects or the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations or DRACO.
The purpose of the program is deceptively simple: use a nuclear thermal propulsion system to power a spacecraft beyond Earth’s low orbit.
The Pentagon Research and Development Agency says a nuclear-powered spacecraft has the potential to achieve both the high power of a chemical-based propulsion system and the high efficiency of a power-powered system.
“This combination would give a DRACO spacecraft greater agility to implement the Department of Defense’s central principle of rapid maneuvering in lunar space (between Earth and the moon),” the agency said.
The contracts awarded to the companies are for the first 18-month phase of the two-piece program.
In Runway A, General Atomics will address the preliminary design of a nuclear thermal reactor and the concept for a propulsion subsystem, with a contract worth $ 22.2 million.
In Runway B, Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin – awarded $ 2.5 million and $ 2.9 million, respectively – will each develop spacecraft concepts.
“Nuclear thermal propulsion is a transformative technology that will dramatically change the way the spacecraft operates, increasing agility and allowing a more efficient journey to Mars and beyond in much less time than conventional propulsion systems,” said Bill Pratt, manager. Lockheed Martin Space Programs’ Human Exploration Advanced said in a statement to CNBC. “A lot of work has been done in the past decades on nuclear propulsion, and we will benefit from this expertise as we combine it with modern digital engineering design and the creativity of modern spacecraft to advance this new capability.”
While the defense giant is often focused on this type of Pentagon work, this award represents a new national security contract for Bezos – which focuses on a variety of space projects, including its New Shepard rocket, a rocket reusable giant named New Glenn and a lunar astronaut landing for NASA.
“Blue Origin is pleased to support DARPA in maturing spacecraft concepts for this important technology area,” Brent Sherwood, the company’s senior vice president of advanced development programs, said in a statement to CNBC.
DARPA expects the first phase of DRACO’s work to be completed by the end of 2022, and the next steps will be completed.