NASA wants to develop a nuclear reactor on the moon’s surface by 2030 so that it can be used to support manned missions to Mars.
“America is committed to returning to the Moon, building the infrastructure to stay, and making the investments required for the next giant leap to Mars and beyond. Achieving this future requires harnessing nuclear power,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Tuesday.
The space agency is working with the Department of Energy to come up with a nuclear fission reactor that could be installed on the moon. If the reactor is successfully installed and operated, NASA said it could provide electric power for years without needing to be refueled, free of worries about sunlight or temperature affecting power production.
The reactor, NASA said, would be used as part of the Artemis missions to the moon ahead of future missions to Mars.
The nuclear reactor plan was also mentioned in an executive order from President Trump last month, calling for the government to work toward securing the country’s superiority in space.
Artemis I was an uncrewed flight test around the moon using the Orion spacecraft. Artemis II, which NASA wants to launch by early April, will be a human-crewed test of the spacecraft.
Artemis III “will send the first humans to explore the region near the lunar South Pole,” per the NASA website, while Artemis IV aims to debut “humanity’s first lunar space station,” along with a newer, upgraded rocket and mobile launcher.
Russia and China have also planned to deploy their own joint lunar nuclear reactor.
In 2024, Yury Borisov, at the time the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, said “we are seriously considering a project—somewhere at the turn of 2033–2035 — to deliver and install a [nuclear] power unit on the lunar surface together with our Chinese colleagues,” according to the American Nuclear Society.
The reactor would be used to support a joint Russian-Chinese lunar research station first announced in 2021, according to the American Nuclear Society.
