Nuclear

Under a UK Space Agency contract, Bangor University in Wales is developing a new poppy-seed-sized nuclear fuel for the Rolls-Royce micro reactors that will power future crewed lunar outposts by 2030.

The first crewed mission to Mars may get there and back a bit faster and safer if a contract DARPA has awarded to Lockheed Martin bears fruit. The contract is to rapidly advance and fabricate a nuclear thermal rocket engine scheduled to fly by 2027.

More than 12 years after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that cost Japan 20,000 lives, the IAEA has formally approved Japan's plan to release treated radioactive water from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station into the sea.

Nuclear Transport Solutions (NTS), part of Britain's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, is looking to reduce fuel costs and emissions of its ships used to transport spent nuclear fuel from around the world by retrofitting them with high-tech sails.

To make the United States self-sufficient in rare exotic elements, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has developed a latest generation electromagnetic isotope separator (EMIS) to harvest stable isotopes across the entire periodic table.

In an outrageously audacious move, Washington-based fusion power startup Helion has signed the world's first fusion power supply deal, promising to deliver Microsoft at least 50 megawatts of clean fusion power by 2028, or pay financial penalties.

They say that 'small is beautiful,' and the Westinghouse Electric Company seems to have embraced this with the unveiling of its AP300 Small Nuclear Reactor (SMR), which combines Gen III+ reactor technology with a more compact, economical size.

The UK Space Agency has awarded Rolls-Royce a £2.9-million (US$3.5-million) contract to develop a demonstrator modular nuclear reactor that could be installed on the Moon by 2029 to support permanent human outposts on the lunar surface.

The US, UK, and Australian governments have outlined a plan to provide the Royal Australian Navy with nuclear-powered attack submarines, which includes the development of a new AUKUS-class submarine that will include American and British technology.

NASA and DARPA have agreed to develop and test a nuclear rocket engine in space as soon as 2027. Using a nuclear reactor as its power source, it would outperform chemical rockets and greatly reduce the time for the first crewed Mars mission.

In a move that could see a new generation of deep-space CubeSats, NASA has greenlighted a project by the Rochester Institute of Technology to develop a nuclear power source that is a tenth the size of those in current use for planetary missions.

Russia is the only country that sells the HALEU fuel that some next-generation nuclear plants will rely on, and with sanctions now in place due to the war in Ukraine, TerraPower has now conceded its demo timeline will blow out by at least two years.