Nuclear thermal propulsion has the advantages of large thrust,high specific impulse,high energy conversion efficiency and long operating time,with broad prospects in the field of deep space exploration.Automatic reactor control can reduce the misoperation accident caused by human,improve economic performance and reliability,and reduce unnecessary losses.Based on vPower simulation support platform,the automatic control simulation of typical nuclear thermal propulsion system is carried out to study the automatic control method of nuclear thermal propulsion system.The simulation control system is designed and added by determining the control strategy,selecting the proportional differential integral(PID)as the main control method,and adding the reactive feedback module to improve the system simulation model.The simulation results show that with the designed control system,the automatic control of nuclear thermal propulsion system start-up and shutdown can be realized,and the power,specific impulse and thrust can be automatically controlled and adjusted according to the extemal target requirements.