UK Funds Lunar Nuclear Micro-Reactor

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UK Space Agency announced £2.9 million of new funding for a nuclear micro-reactor by Rolls-Royce. They want nuclear power to support a future Moon base for astronauts. This follows a £249,000 study funded by the UK Space Agency in 2022. Rolls-Royce plan to have a reactor ready to send to the Moon by 2029.

Scientists and engineers at Rolls-Royce are working on the Micro-Reactor program to develop technology that will provide power needed for humans to live and work on the Moon. All space missions depend on a power source, to support systems for communications, life-support and science experiments. Nuclear power has the potential to dramatically increase the duration of future Lunar missions and their scientific value.

The US has been looking at nuclear micro-reactors for space missions. NASA has been developing the kilopower system.

NASA’s fission surface power project expands on Kilopower’s work and results, focusing on a 10-kilowatt class lunar demonstration in the late 2020s. The prototype power system used a solid, cast uranium-235 reactor core, about the size of a paper towel roll. Passive sodium heat pipes transfer reactor heat to high-efficiency Stirling engines, which convert the heat to electricity.

NASA and DARPA have other plans to build a functioning nuclear thermal rocket by 2027.

17 thoughts on “UK Funds Lunar Nuclear Micro-Reactor”

  1. I infer from public information that our military have miniature nuclear fission reactors. They power nuclear submarines, six man nuclear submarines, satellites, and space laser weapons. Unfortunately the designs are classified. UK must reinvent the wheel.

    I read via Google that the cost of miniature nuclear fission electricity is between $0.14 and $0.41 per kWh. I already pay more than that thanks to government green weenies.

    • Why? The U.K. already has one of the largest fleets of nuclear powered subs, both ballistic missile carrying and hunter killers, and the reactors for those are all U.K. built. Rolls Royce is also already developing a range of land based SMRs for commercial deployment later this decade.

  2. This is interesting.
    With Russia barely able to fund basic infrastructure and a depleted military industrial complex, that will never be used again except as proxy in the middle east and africa (who cares?), for the remainder of this decade; the Chinese split into too many orbital projects; and the EU likely distracted trying to fund its military and green-transition – Mars and the Moon are wide open. The US should partner with the UK but focus on asteroid and mars projects into later 2020s and into the next decade.

    • It’s quite interesting to consider the Antarctica full-time stations as an examplar. Very nation-specific, there are 1000s of long-time staff over dozens of bases, many very isolated. Is this the model for Moon base inhabitation? – methinks only a few nations have such an established manned space program (or are friends with one) to make this happen. Prediction: US, China, Japan, UK, and EU each with a full-time base by 2050, with total moon population of just under 50 – upto 1000s by end-of-century.

  3. At least they are starting to think about these things.
    What are they going to do? Burn coal?

    Like the human Rx, it is time to think about what it will take to
    really stay on the Moon.

    • Why? I don’t want to go there. I’d rather have 10 acres in tumbleweed Oklahoma. Moon is nonsense… maybe useful as a Navy base in 100 years.

  4. I like the British. They are still relevant and continue to produce good science. I would like to see them purchase a huge number of Tesla MegaPacks to store the enormous amount of wind energy they harvest. (Don’t hate me – I still own stock in petroleum producers and pipeline companies. I believe in an ‘all of the above’ type of solution for cheap, reliable energy.)

    I hope this comes to fruition quickly. I’m 59, and would like to see colonization of the moon in my lifetime.

    Not sure how soon colonizing Mars will take place…

  5. Love the artwork – glowing like a mercury/argon neon tube.

    Given TRISO, I think you could probably make a moon reactor with a steel pipe and something to boil like mercury or potassium.

    Britain’s colonial aspirations live on!

    • I haven’t kept up with TRISO research. How many ceramic layers are necessary to prevent radioactive particles from releasing? Is there any published research that has produced a working kernel of uranium that produces heat but doesn’t emit dangerous levels of radiation? Has it been proven to limit runaway reactions?

      I remember I was intrigued by the concept back in the mid 2000s…

      • I’m pretty sure TRISO is so durable, it would be extremely difficult to recycle. There are half a dozen TRISO types in development now (evince, x-energy, kairos, bwxt micro)… there is operating experience with BISO in Ft. St. Vrain and the German/Chinese PBMRs (HTRPM). I’m not really interested in TRISO since reactors fueled with it tend to have 0.05gU/cc vs. 2.3gU/cc in LWRs. I think it is a dead end except for some dead end applications like space or military FOB.

        TLDR: TRISO is basically proven to hold fission products quite well, but not without release.

        • No recycling, TRISO is very robust,and holds its shape for millions of years until it is crushed by tectonic plates, on the Moon you could just store it .

          • Manufacturing processes laying down refractory gemstone using PVD (physical vapor deposition) doesn’t scale well to hundreds of tons needed in an energy economy. TRISO is EXQUISITELY expensive and fabrication is energy intensive. The DOE is no different than any other government agency desperately attempting to stimulate the suffocated embers of an industry by PICKING WINNERS artificially based on fuel robustness and proliferation resistance. Neither of those things improves the bottom line of a power plant. TRISO is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

    • Because the U.K. is one of the few nations already developing and building small nuclear reactors, and both the U.S. and ESA have issued requests for suppliers. Rolls Royce is already developing a range of SMR’s, and its military nukes already power a large fleet of nuclear subs, and will power the new generation Aukus subs for U.K. and Australia.

      The U.K. has also for some time been a relatively large player in space tech, expanding from a large share of satellite construction, to a growing stake in components of exploration craft. After a long term avoidance of supporting crewed flight, in recent years the U.K. has been funding and participating in crewed missions, largely through ESA – Brexit didn’t affect U.K. involvement in ESA since it’s a separate organisation.

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