How a UC Davis nuclear reactor is helping NASA get astronauts back to the moon

NASA's Artemis II rocket is scheduled to blast off this spring, taking humans back to the moon's orbit for the first time in more than 50 years. A nuclear reactor at UC Davis in Northern California is helping make the mission a success.

Before the Artemis moon mission ever leaves the launchpad, parts of the spacecraft undergo safety testing in Sacramento.

"It's really very interesting," said Sandra Warren, of the UC Davis McClellan Nuclear Research Center. "We get very excited when we have something like that."

Warren is an engineer at the research center. They use neutrons to create an image of the parts, similar to an X-ray, which can detect defects that could cause a disaster.

"Everything that a person's life depends on usually is neutron radiographed. NASA spares no expense about that," Warren said.

At the UC Davis research center is the radioactive core of a one-megawatt nuclear reactor, which was originally built by the military when McClellan was an Air Force base.

Uranium fuel is used to generate neutrons, which are then beamed at the objects inside a radiation-shielded bay that's big enough to accommodate NASA's largest space parts.

"If you can look inside of them and see what's going on, then you can say, 'All right, this part is going to work,' " Warren said.

NASA objects inspected there include the frangible joints that separate the stages of the rocket, and the pyrotechnic windows and hatch of the Orion capsule that carries the astronauts. Their imaging has discovered defects in past parts.

"That's what the purpose of neutron radiography is," Warren said. "Now they will pluck out these bad parts before they ever get into a larger assembly".

When it's not inspecting spaceships, the reactor is also used for other UC Davis research, like monitoring tomato plants.

"They could see the growth of the roots on the plants," Warren said.

The Artemis program is scheduled to last at least another decade, and these UC Davis engineers will be working to keep NASA's astronauts safe.

"They're brave and they face a lot of dangers, so the least we can do is to make sure that everything works as it's supposed to," Warren said.

The McClellan facility is the only nuclear reactor still operating in Northern California, and it's designed to automatically shut down if anything goes wrong.