US Patent Issued to Blue Origin on Feb. 25 for "Nuclear thermal propulsion system with reactor direct drive of cryocooler turbine" (Washington Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,234,042, issued on Feb. 25, was assigned to Blue Origin LLC (Kent, Wash.).

"Nuclear thermal propulsion system with reactor direct drive of cryocooler turbine" was invented by Zachary Reid Tolley (Kent, Wash.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Systems and methods for nuclear reactor direct drive of a cryocooler turbine. A nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) system may have a nuclear reactor that heats a thermal working fluid for directly driving the turbine to power a cryogenic fluid management (CFM) system for keeping propellant at cryogenic temperatures. The features may be used on NTP rockets. The propellant may be liquid hydrogen."

The pate...