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The purpose was to collect and categorize a forecast of civilian space missions and their power requirements, and to assess the suitability of an SP-100 class space reactor power system to those missions. A wide variety of missions were selected for examination. The applicability of an SP-100 type of nuclear power system was assessed for each of the selected missions; a strawman nuclear power system configuration was drawn up for each mission. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) Space nuclear power in the 50 kW sub e plus range can enhance or enable a wide variety of ambitious civil space mission; (2) Safety issues require additional analyses for some applications; (3) Safe space nuclear reactor disposal is an issue for some applications; (4) The current baseline SP-100 conical radiator configuration is not applicable in all cases; (5) Several applications will require shielding greater than that provided by the baseline shadow-shield; and (6) Long duration, continuous operation, high reliability missions may exceed the currently designed SP-100 lifetime capabilities.

The results are summarized of the studies over the last several years to identify and characterize potential applications for the SP-100 space nuclear reactor power system in powering spacecraft. SP-100 is a space power system based on a fast spectrum nuclear reactor with thermoelectric power conversion and liquid metal and heat pipe thermal transport. SP-100 reactor systems are designed to provide electric power with user designated characteristics at levels in the range from 10 to 1000 kWe. The use of nuclear reactors such as SP-100 as a power source provides a potential means of providing uninterrupted electrical power as required for many of todays space missions within acceptable cost and safety constraints.