In December last year, US President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order titled “Ensuring American Space Superiority,” with two main objectives: Return Americans to the Moon by 2028, establish a permanent lunar outpost, and launch a ‘National Initiative for American Space Nuclear Power,’ which entailed deploying a nuclear rector in orbit by 2028 and on lunar surface by 2030.
With the successful return of Artemis-II, the first manned mission to the Moon in 50 years, the US is now focusing on initiating stage 2 of the ambitious program, establishing nuclear reactors in space.
On April 14, the White House issued a six-page directive to the Pentagon and NASA: deploy nuclear reactors into Earth’s orbit as soon as 2028 and to the lunar surface by 2030.
For this objective, the memo directs the establishment of a National Initiative for American Space Nuclear Power by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
This National Initiative will enable sustained, high-level focus and attention from the White House and relevant agencies to ensure time-bound deliverables.
“The United States will lead the world in developing and deploying space nuclear power for exploration, commerce, and defense,” the memo said.
It calls for a dual design competition between NASA and the Department of War (DoW) to produce a “near-term demonstration and use of low- to mid-power space reactors in orbit and on the lunar surface.”
The next objective would be to deploy high-power reactors by the 2030s.
“Agencies will establish cost-effective partnerships with private-sector innovators to meet near-term objectives that include safely deploying nuclear reactors in orbit as early as 2028 and on the Moon as early as 2030.”
Achieving this capability will not only help in deep-space exploration but also boost the US’s defense capabilities.
“Achieving these near-term objectives will establish technological viability essential to unlocking space exploration commerce and defense applications,” the policy paper read.
The policy paper was unveiled by Michael Kratsios, the director of the White House’s science and technology policy office, on April 14 at the Space Symposium.
“Nuclear power in space will give us the sustained electricity, heating, and propulsion essential to a permanent robotic and eventually human presence on the moon, on Mars, and beyond,” Kratsios was quoted as saying by Defense One.
The defense applications for a nuclear reactor are wide-ranging, said Todd Harrison, a space policy and budget expert for the American Enterprise Institute. With a reliable energy source, the military could use it to power some of its most crucial future missions.
“You could run data centers in space, you could use it to power mission-critical systems that can never really go without power, like missile warning, strategic communications,” Harrision said. “Directed energy, jamming, data centers, all of those things could use a lot of power.”
The memo directs NASA to initiate, within 30 days of this memorandum, a program to develop a mid-power space reactor with a lunar fission surface power (FSP) variant ready for launch by 2030, and an option for a space variant for a nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) demonstration.
“NASA will partner with multiple vendors to develop fission power systems (including the reactor and power conversion) through at least preliminary design review and ground tests
that demonstrate hardware performance, pending successful achievement of all milestones.”
NEP variants will be designed for compatibility with launch vehicles that are or will be readily available by 2029, and should ensure that planning for power usage does not drive
the overall technical, cost, or schedule risk of the project, it said.
The mid-power reactors will be designed to provide at least 20 kilowatt electric (kWe) for at least 3 years in orbit and at least 5 years on the lunar surface.
However, NASA should also consider, the memo said, extensibility to higher power levels.
“At least one of the selected designs should be for a reactor that is extensible up to at
least 100 kWe.”
Within 90 days, DOW will inform the White House of the final results after analyzing operationally relevant use cases and payloads for low-power, mid-power, and high-power space nuclear systems, as well as an initial assessment of the best use of the 2031 mission.
Following that, the White House, in consultation with DOW, NASA, and other relevant agencies, will decide on the final mission for that technology.
Separately, NASA should pursue the development and deployment of a high-power
space reactor that can be ready for launch in the 2030s.
This reactor should be designed to provide at least 100 kWe, building on the preceding DOW and NASA space nuclear achievements, it said.
Apart from deploying nuclear reactors in orbit and on the lunar surface, the US is also working on an ambitious project to field nuclear microreactors to power its military bases.
A micro nuclear reactor is a very small, compact nuclear fission reactor designed to generate low amounts of power—typically 1 to 20 megawatts electric (MWe) or up to about 50 MW thermal in some definitions.
It serves as a portable, flexible source of clean, reliable energy for applications where traditional large nuclear plants or even small modular reactors (SMRs) would be impractical.
Last year, the US Army announced that it aimed to break ground on a microreactor on a U.S. base by 2027. Subsequently, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit declared eight companies eligible to build those microreactors.
Last week, the Air Force and Defense Innovation Unit selected Buckley Space Force Base in Colorado and Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana as potential locations for two microreactors. There is also a standalone pilot program that will test the operational benefits of a reactor at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska.
Notably, while several microreactor designs are in licensing, testing, or early deployment phases, no microreactor is operational anywhere on Earth.
Therefore, if the US is able to operationalize a microreactor on a US military base by next year, it will be a ground-breaking achievement.
Similarly, no country has been able to deploy a nuclear reactor in orbit or on the lunar surface.
The US timeline for deploying a nuclear reactor in orbit (2028) and on the lunar surface by 2030 is certainly ambitious.
“The timeline and feasibility strike me as rather aggressive,” Harrison said. “Demonstrating a microreactor on Earth would be challenging by 2028; doing it in space is even more challenging.”
However, if the US is able to achieve this within the said timelines, or even a few years later, this would definitely put Washington years ahead of China and Russia in the space race.
Notably, China and Russia are also planning to deploy nuclear reactors on the lunar surface. However, they are targeting a 2036 timeline for the project.
Deploying a nuclear reactor on the lunar surface would solve the need for constant energy for a human base on the Moon.
The Moon experiences 14 Earth days of continuous sunlight followed by 14 days of darkness (lunar night). Solar power plus batteries, therefore, struggles during the long night.
NASA’s Fission Surface Power (FSP) project explicitly aims to provide continuous, reliable power “regardless of sunlight or temperature.”
Similarly, nuclear-powered spacecraft will make deep space exploration missions to Mars and beyond feasible.
A workable microreactor on Earth, in orbit, and on the lunar surface, therefore, is central to humanity’s space exploration dreams.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.
- THIS IS AN OPINION ARTICLE. VIEWS PERSONAL OF THE AUTHOR
- He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com
