Research on Safety Impact Assessment Method of Rocket Launching for Nuclear Power Plant

Abstract

With the rapid development of commercial aerospace activities, the risk from new external human-induced events, such as those originating from nearby satellite rocket launch sites, requires evaluation.. This paper investigates the risk posed by a satellite rocket launch site, which is only 26km away from the nuclear power plant. In view of the lack of evaluation guidelines for rocket impact nuclear facilities at home and abroad, this study refers to the analysis framework of aircraft impact in the U.S. Department of energy standards, combined with the flight characteristics of the rocket, establishes an impact frequency probability assessment model suitable for rocket launch. Based on the four factor formula, this model defines and quantifies the key parameters such as the number of rocket launches per year, the probability of single launch failure, the conditional probability of crash deviation to the plant area and the effective impact area of the nuclear island. A variety of conservative scenarios are set up to evaluate the impact risks of mature and commercial rockets at different launch frequencies. The results show that the risk level of mature rocket series is far lower than 1× 10-7/year screening threshold under the extremely conservative scenario of security control system failure, indicating an acceptable risk. When the launch frequency of commercial rocket with high failure probability is high, the risk may exceed the screening threshold. In addition, the impact of explosion, electromagnetic interference and vibration of rocket launch can be ignored. The results of this study provide quantitative basis and decision support for nuclear power plants to deal with the risk control of adjacent space launch activities, and serves as a valuable reference for improving China's nuclear safety regulatory framework.