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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, prepared in fiscal year 2010 by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program, reviews aneutronic fusion as a way to propel spacecraft. It compares chemical, ion, fission, fusion and antimatter propulsion, and it also covers radiation shielding and relativistic rocket calculations. It looks at research needs over the next 30 years for missions from low Earth orbit to Mars, Jupiter and Alpha Centauri.
From the source:Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 11/1/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD surveys aneutronic fusion as a possible advanced space-propulsion method, focusing on fusion reactions that release most of their energy in charged particles rather than neutrons and therefore offer potential advantages over more neutron-intensive fusion concepts, especially in radiation shielding, direct energy conversion, and thrust generation. The report reviews the underlying rocket physics, compares candidate fusion fuels and ignition conditions, and gives particular attention to proton-boron and related schemes, while also discussing Bussard’s concepts and other fusion projects as representative development paths. It also makes clear that the central obstacle remains ignition and sustained net-energy fusion under practical conditions, and it notes additional problems such as x-ray energy losses from the hot plasma, extreme temperature requirements, and the gap between theoretical specific impulse and what proposed systems had demonstrated experimentally. Overall, the document presents aneutronic fusion propulsion as an attractive long-range concept for deep-space travel, but one whose practical realization still depended on major unresolved advances in fusion engineering.
“Low Earth orbit”6 pages
UNCLASSIFIED//POlt Offl@IAL WS& &NkY using D-Li6 fuel pellets. The estimated travel time of this system to Alpha Centauri was 100 years at an average velocity of about 0 .5% of the speed of light. OTHER ANEUTRONIC ROCKET DESIGNS Anti matter-Catalyzed Fusion In the 1990s, Pennsylvania State University worked on a fusion rocket design that employed antimatter to catalyze fission reactions in uranium. As a comparison, in order to make a nuclear fission bomb for space propulsion, approximately 12 kg of uranium-235 is required to generate the three critical masses required. Using antimatter, this can be achieved with gram-quantities of uranium. Magnetized Target Fusion Plasma guns are used instead of lasers to generate heat in a low-density fusion fuel mixture confined by magnetic fields. The fuel is rapidly compressed to ignite fusion. The NASA/MSFC HOPE (Human Outer Planets Exploration) Group estimates that this propulsion system could transport payloads to Jupiter within about 300 days. Ion Drives The VASMIR engine is a highly efficient ion thruster that uses an RF resonant cavity to accelerate ionized argon or xenon gas as a propellant. One concept is to generate electricity from aneutronic fusion by capturing the energy of the emitted ions in a magnetohydrodynamic generator. The electricity would then be used to power the VISMIR ion drive. This direct conversion drive could capture useful energy from aneutronic fusion or from D-T fusion which is easy to ignite, but loses about 80% of its energy to neutrons. The neutrons can be used to generate secondary ions through impact on a target and the ion energy can be collected in the MHD generator. COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT In addition to teams from universities and national laboratories, several compan ies have been formed to develop aneutronic fusion propulsion systems. Several are discussed below . 1. EMC2 Fusion Development Corporat ion A prolific designer and aut hor, Dr. Robert Bussard has explored inertial electrostatic confinement fusion as used in the Farnsworth-Hirsh Fusor .13, 14, 15, 16, 17 He and his colleagues formed EMC2, a private company based in Sa nta Fe, New Mexico, to test components of a practical fusion drive. Their work has been funded by DARPA, NASA, and the U.S. Navy. Outlined in Figu re 11, his QED (charged particle electric discharge eng ine) is based on t he Farnsworth -Hirsch Fusor, an ion accelerator patented in 1968. This accelerat or works throug h the use of spherical electrodes that force ions toward the center of a spherical chamber by Lorent z forces. By injecting preheated ions of deuterium and helium-3 or boron-11 into t he fusor core, the resu lting fusion UNCLASSIFIED/fF&A &FFI&I:.l.k W&li &NkY 22
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