British industrial group Rolls-Royce announced on Friday that it had received 2.9 million pounds (3.3 million euros) of funding from the British Space Agency to develop small nuclear reactors for future lunar bases, AFP and CNBC reported. , reports Agerpres.

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

The group predicts that the first such reactor, which will be the size of a car, will be ready to be sent to the moon by 2029.

50 years after the last mission of the Apollo space program, the return of humans to the moon is becoming a reality: NASA announced earlier this month that the Artemis 2 space mission will send astronauts into orbit around the Earth’s moon in November 2024.

Preparations for the return to the moon are intensifying

The Artemis 3 mission, which will deliver astronauts to the surface of the Moon, is officially scheduled for 2025. NASA and the company Axiom Space presented on Wednesday in Houston, Texas, a prototype of a new spacesuit designed for the study of the Moon.

“Nuclear power can significantly increase the duration of future lunar missions and their scientific value,” says Rolls-Royce, which is collaborating on the project with several British universities, including Oxford.

The funding announced on Friday is in addition to £249,000 paid to Rolls-Royce by the British Space Agency in 2022.

This new tranche will allow the company to conduct the first demonstration of the work of a modular selenium nuclear reactor. Rolls-Royce has also built small nuclear reactors to produce energy as part of a British project to accelerate the construction of new nuclear power plants on its territory.