![]() The specific impulse of a photonic rocket is harder to define, since the output has no (rest) mass and is not expended fuel if we take the momentum per inertia of the photons, the specific impulse is just c, which is impressive. The power per thrust required for a perfectly collimated output beam is 300 MW/ N (half this if it can be reflected off the craft) very high energy density power sources would be required to provide reasonable thrust without unreasonable weight. Photonic rockets are technologically feasible, but rather impractical with current technology based on an onboard nuclear power source.Įnergy requirements and comparisons The photon radiators would most likely be constructed using graphite or tungsten. The disadvantage is that it takes much power to generate a small amount of thrust this way, so acceleration is very low. In a traditional nuclear photonic rocket, an onboard nuclear reactor would generate such high temperatures that the blackbody radiation from the reactor would provide significant thrust. JSTOR ( November 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.įind sources: "Nuclear photonic rocket" – news Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This article needs additional citations for verification.
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