Westinghouse’s lunar microreactor concept gets a contract for continued R&D

According to Westinghouse, the new contract—awarded by Idaho National Laboratory, which is managing FSP for NASA—will build on design work Westinghouse completed during Phase 1 and include optimizing the design and beginning testing of critical technology elements. “The continued progress under the FSP project can enable NASA’s goal of a lunar demonstration within the next decade,” the company said in a statement.

First award: Westinghouse (with partner Aerojet Rocketdyne) was one of three awardees chosen in June 2022 to get $5 million to develop Phase 1 FSP designs. Initial specifications included a minimum end-of-life 40 kWe continuous power output for at least 10 years, a system that fits within a stowed cylinder measuring 4 meters in diameter and 6 meters in length, a total system mass not exceeding 6 metric tons, and autonomous operation from the deck of a lunar lander or from a separate mobile system that permits the reactor to be moved to another lunar site. The other companies named for Phase 1 work were Lockheed Martin (partnered with BWX Technologies and Creare) and IX (a joint venture of Intuitive Machines and X-energy, partnered with Maxar and Boeing).

A NASA article released in January 2024 indicated that the agency planned to “extend the three Phase 1 contracts to gather more information before Phase 2, when industry will be solicited to design the final reactor to demonstrate on the Moon.” An open solicitation for Phase 2 work was expected in 2025, according to NASA.

The approach: To survive and meet mission requirements on the moon, a microreactor must be resilient and mass efficient. Westinghouse’s proposed FSP design is a scaled-down version of its eVinci microreactor—a sodium-cooled 5-MWe heat pipe microreactor that Westinghouse will soon test, on an experimental scale, at INL.

Westinghouse announced in June 2022 that it would fulfill its Phase 1 contract with additional support from Astrobotic, a company that designs and deploys lunar landers and rovers, and confirmed that partnership one year later with a memorandum of understanding “explore collaboration” on space technology programs for NASA and the Department of Defense.

“This award reflects our close collaboration with NASA and the progress we’ve made on the FSP program that will enable a strategic capability for the Artemis mission,” said Richard Rademacher, president of Westinghouse Government Services. “We look forward to testing and demonstrating our proprietary microreactor technology in the coming years under this important NASA initiative.”