Heat pipes are how we cool our reactor. They rely on working fluid phase change to passively move heat from our core to our heat exchanger, without any moving parts, like pumps or rotating components.

Heat pipes were developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1963 for space nuclear power, and are now used in everyday applications like smart phones, laptops, and satellite radiators.

We believe the key to building many reactors is comprehensive testing of components and systems. A key advantage of using heat pipes is that we can iterate much faster on collecting test data compared to a turbopump for a gas coolant. We are building and testing heat pipes daily!