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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, dated 1 November 2010, was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office under the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Applications program. It reviews fusion plasma physics, confinement methods and propulsion concepts that use aneutronic fusion fuels such as hydrogen and boron-11. It concludes that pulsed DPF or IEC thrusters may replace satellite ion thrusters in the near term. It also finds that aneutronic fusion propulsion will not be practical beyond the solar system without breakthrough propulsion physics.
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 revisits aneutronic fusion propulsion in a more systems-oriented manner, arguing that fusion concepts using low-neutron fuels such as proton-boron or helium-3 could become attractive for space propulsion because they reduce shielding burdens and may support direct conversion of charged-particle energy into thrust or onboard power. The report reviews the relevant fusion plasma physics and focuses on several candidate confinement approaches, then connects those concepts to possible applications in near-space, orbital, and interplanetary propulsion. It presents the most plausible nearer-term use as very high-power electric or plasma propulsion for satellites and deep-space missions rather than atmospheric flight or interstellar travel, while emphasizing that major obstacles remain in ignition, sustained confinement, system mass, power handling, fuel storage, launch integration, and end-to-end engineering.
UNCLASSIFIED/ /FOR OFFI&IAl l::181: 8HL'f the MeV alpha particles for the (p, 11B) into a direct thrust would increase the l sp to >5,000 seconds with thrust levels >5 N/kW. Xenon / P lasma Jet Electron Guide 0ri: / 0------.,_--.i-.,.,-- Electron + 100V Emitters ~ Figure 13. Design of an IEC Jet Thruster - Experimental Device (left) INTERPLANETARY Many of t he fusion reactor applications described in Chapter 3 have been specifically applied to space propulsion. The key reason fo r the benefits of such systems lies in the fundamentally different nature of fusion propulsion compared to chemical or nuclear thermal propulsion. Fusion propulsion systems pay a mass pena lty for carrying their power source . However, a propellant mass savings results from the high thrust per unit mass that arises from high exhaust velocity that overcomes the power-source mass penalty. These potential performance enhancements are shown in Figure 14, wh ich illustrates fusion propu lsion's capabilities for fast transport of humans or efficient transport of cargo between circular solar orbits for Earth -Mars one-way rendezvous missions. 18 In order to ach ieve the efficient solar system travel shown in Figure 14, propulsion systems must achieve specific powers of at least 1 kW/kg at exhaust velocities of ~105 - 106 m/s, leading to thrust-to-weight ratios of ~10-3 . The requ ired range of parameters and a comparison wit h chemical and nuclear thermal propu lsion options appears in Figure 15. 19 The capability of tun ing the exhaust velocity over factors of 10- 100 is a desirable feature that facil itates energy intensive missions. For the same delivered payload the fraction of the propellant and nonpayload mass is significantly minimized for fusion propulsion as compared to the other propulsion options. UNCLASSIFIED/ /POI\ OPPICIAL U.!I!! er~t'I' 18
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 36 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.