Outlooks of thermionic SNPS application for material production in space

One of the important future space technologies is the space production of semiconductive substances, composite materials, medical preparations and so on. Required for this electric power will equal 20–50 kW in nearest ten‐year period with further increasing to one hundred and more kilowatt. For similar production spacecrafts the application of thermionic space nuclear power (SNPS) can be perspective because these systems have a number of important advantages as compared with solar systems for spacecrafts of this type. The possible application concepts of thermionic SNPS with electric power 25 to 30 kW production spacecrafts are considered including the next versions: automatic loading and unloading of raw materials and products; loading and unloading executed by cosmonauts when SNPS being as a part of spacecraft and its demating from spacecraft during the process fulfillment; remote power transmission for power supply of production spacecrafts. It is shown that all considered versions thermionic SNPS can provide power supply of production spacecrafts with satisfying necessary operation requirements.