NERVA Engine

The NERVA was an experimental nuclear engine (NERVA is an acronym for Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applications). Rather than any sort of combustion as in an ordinary rocket engine, the NERVA operated by running hydrogen through a nuclear reactor, heating the gas to temperatures up to 4,250°R (3,790°F) in this way, affording a nominal specific impulse of 825 sec. (by comparison, the J-2 had a vacuum I_sp of 421 sec and the SSME 452). The NERVA on display is just the engine proper; a large nozzle extension would have been bolted onto the engine to properly expand the heated gases.

For a relatively short-lived program and a rocket engine which never flew, there is a good deal of information regarding the NERVA available on the Web:

• NERVA Development Status
• NERVA - Contributing Today and Tomorrow
• An Historical Perspective of the NERVA Nuclear Rocket Engine Technology Program
• Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Ground Test History
• Nuclear thermal rocket workshop reference system Rover/NERVA
• Resources from Federation of American Scientists' Space Nuclear Power / Nuclear Thermal Propulsion page, containing several NERVA-specific documents. Several other documents, including the Rover-related documents, also contain NERVA information.

NERVA, which was to be used for a manned Mars mission, was cancelled when funding for the space program in general and the Mars mission in particular was cut in the early 1970s.

This appears to be the NERVA XE'' engine. It was removed from the USSRC's Rocket Park some time between June 2004 and June 2005. This was shortly after I started visiting the USSRC, and since it never flew, I took very few photos of it at the time (although it did appear in the background of a number of photos I took of other artifacts; I present those here as well).

However, it eventually was moved to Building 4205 at Marshall Space Flight Center, apparently some time after F-1 engine F-4023 was erected there in October 2009.