Research
Affiliated Centers

The center’s mission is to develop technologies with industry for NASA mission needs and space power-related commercial ventures. CSP has developed a variety of space power-related technologies that are available for licensing and applicable to both space and terrestrial commercial activities. Technologies include specialized heat pipes, advanced battery components, novel electronic materials, digital communications algorithms, power conditioners and other power-related devices.

This facility has an 88-inch single-D, variable energy cyclotron capable of accelerating protons and deuterons to 60 MeV, alpha particles to 135 MeV, and heavier ions to energies of 300 MeV. A complete research facility exists with on-line data acquisition capabilities coupled to an IBM 7094 computer system. A cryogenic K-500 has been installed. Injection into the current machine allows heavy ion energies to about 600 MeV.

INSER develops and implements graduate-level education programs targeted at national security professionals. For example, it currently works with Texas A&M's Bush School of Government and Public Service to provide a Graduate Certificate program in National Security Affairs to selected employees from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. INSER also organizes and implements multidisciplinary research and development programs that are relevant to national security. Current programs include those targeted at Nuclear Nonproliferation; Scientific Simulation relevant to national security; and Homeland and International Security.

Researchers in the National Center for Electron Beam Food Research, which has been recently designated as a National Research Center, use high- and low-energy electron beams to reduce the number of bacteria and other pathogens in and on food and other materials. The work is primarily directed at spontaneous, food-borne illness but is also relevant to bioterrorism issues.

The Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute (NSSPI) is a university-based entity that focuses on graduate education, research, and service on a variety of topics related to the safeguarding of nuclear materials and the reduction of nuclear threats. NSSPI works in collaboration with our national laboratory and other partners to develop technological solutions to problems associated with the malicious use of nuclear materials and to study policy issues related to nuclear security.

This facility has a one-megawatt TRIGA swimming pool reactor that can be pulsed and a variety of other features including experimental laboratories, a large irradiation cell, beam ports, a thermal column and a pneumatic "rabbit" system. One of the best-equipped facilities of its type in the country, the facility is used in our laboratory courses as well as our research program.

A NASA commercial space center, STC helps industry transform ideas into space-engineered hardware and assists industry in using the International Space Station, NASA Space Shuttles or other orbital platforms as testbeds for engineering and validating advanced space technology. Created under a cooperative agreement with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, the STC has low-cost access to external platforms on the ISS and the Space Shuttle.