British industrial group Rolls-Royce announced today that it has received £2.9m (€3.3m) funding from the UK space agency to develop small nuclear reactors for future lunar bases.

“Rolls-Royce scientists and engineers are working on a microreactor program to develop technology that will provide the energy people need to live and work on the Moon,” the company said in a statement.

It will be the size of a car.

The group predicts that the first car-sized reactor will be ready to be sent to the moon by 2029.

Roughly 50 years after the last mission of the Apollo program, the return of humans to the Moon is becoming concrete: NASA announced in early March that the Artemis 2 space mission would take astronauts around the moon in November 2024.

The Artemis 3 mission, which will land astronauts on the lunar surface, is officially scheduled for 2025. NASA and Axiom Space unveiled yesterday Wednesday in Houston, Texas, a new spacesuit that these astronauts will wear.

“Nuclear power could significantly increase the duration of future missions to the moon, as well as their scientific value,” said Rolls-Royce, which will work with British universities, including Oxford.

The funding announced today is in addition to £249,000 contributed in 2022 by the UK government space agency. The new amount will allow the company to conduct the first demonstration of a lunar modular nuclear reactor.

Rolls-Royce is also developing small modular reactors for onshore power generation, largely as part of the UK’s plans to speed up construction of new nuclear power plants on its soil.

NASA also announced in January a partnership with the Pentagon to develop a nuclear-powered rocket designed to send humans to Mars.

Source: RES-IPE