Nuclear Rockets for Ants (Missiles, Missile Buses, Drones)

These are just my stock nuclear thermal (nano) rocket designs for small missiles with acceptable to extremely high thrust to weight ratios. I use them in some missile designs where their relative weight is offset by their high specific impulse and elimination of oxidizer. I found great success with the 0.196kg design for loading it into a sub 6kg missile design with very small nuke.

TWR vs specific impulse can be traded off by tweaking the nozzle parameters, typically the smaller designs suffer from lower TWRs and past a kilogram the designs typically have chemical rocket TWRs

Methane based family below

Thrust Velocity Mass (kg) Thrust (kN) TWR Notes
6.6km/s 0.196 0.656 341:1 Can be optimized, see below. Mass limited.
6.6km/s 0.209 0.797 388:1 Small TWR increase over .196kg variant
6.6km/s 0.236 1.05 456:1
6.6km/s 0.344 2.16 640:1
6.6km/s 0.430 3.23 767:1
6.6km/s 0.599 5.65 963:1
6.6km/s 1.37- 18.8 1400:1
6.6km/s 2.01- 30.8 1560:1
6.6km/s 2.74- 42.6 1580:1 Gimbaled variant of 2.7kg design
6.6km/s 2.70- 42.6 1610:1
6.6km/s 4.24- 63.7 1560:1
6.6km/s 14.1- 298 2150:1 Very, very high TWR 7x2.7kg with gimbal
6.3km/s 0.189 0.507 274:1 RCS for HTK missiles


6.6 km/s Methane NTNR 0.196 kg 341:1

6.6 km/s Methane NTNR 0.209 kg 388:1

6.6 km/s Methane NTNR 0.236 kg 456:1

NTNR 0.344 kg 640:1


NTNR 0.430 kg 767:1


NTNR 0.599 kg 963:1

NTNR 1.37 kg 1400:1

NTNR 2.01 kg 1560:1

Gimbaled NTNR 2.74 kg 1580:1

Control NTNR 0.189 kg 274:1