Lockheed Martin is among the companies involved in NASA’s lunar fission power work, and smaller reactors in the 10 kWe class have been studied as potential early power options alongside the agency’s 40 kWe Fission Surface Power concept. NASA and the Department of Energy have also publicly set a goal of delivering a lunar surface reactor by 2030, a timeline reinforced by a May 2025 White House executive order calling for lunar and orbital reactors ready for launch by 2030. If smaller, earlier-deployed units are pursued, they could provide initial power for surface operations while higher-power systems and broader infrastructure mature.
From 40 kW Baseline to a Smaller First Step
NASA’s Fission Surface Power project has long centered on a 40 kilowatt electric system weighing under six metric tons, designed to run for roughly a decade without human intervention and deliver continuous electricity through the approximately 14.5 Earth-day lunar night. That specification emerged from Phase 1 concept studies that NASA and DOE funded at approximately $5 million each, managed through DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory, with Lockheed Martin among the contractors that received those awards. The 40 kW class unit is sized to support a substantial surface presence, including habitats, mobility systems, and early industry, while remaining within the launch mass that heavy-lift rockets and large lunar landers can realistically deliver.
Yet the 40 kW target was always a ceiling for the initial design, not the only option under study. A peer-reviewed NASA technical paper presented at the NETS‑2022 conference describes both 10 kWe and 40 kWe concepts for deployable lunar fission power, confirming that engineers inside the agency have modeled smaller reactors as viable stand‑alone units rather than mere test beds. Lockheed’s decision to aim at the 5 to 10 kW range tracks with that research and reflects a practical calculation: a lighter, lower-output reactor is easier to fit on near-term Artemis landers and could reach the surface before the full-scale system completes qualification, giving crews a first trickle of reliable power while larger infrastructure follows.
Policy Pressure and the 2030 Deadline
Two policy actions in the past year have compressed the timeline and raised the stakes. A May 2025 executive order directed federal agencies to accelerate advanced nuclear reactor technologies, calling explicitly for lunar and orbital reactors ready for launch by 2030 as part of a broader national security and space strategy. That directive effectively set a political deadline on what had been a technology-driven roadmap, signaling that the White House expects nuclear power to underpin U.S. presence beyond Earth orbit in the same way it supports some national security missions on the ground.
Then, in a NASA news release, NASA and the Department of Energy announced plans to deliver a lunar surface reactor by 2030. That announcement matters because it reinforces a shared NASA–DOE push toward a lunar surface reactor by 2030, and NASA has also described longer-term lunar surface power needs on the order of tens of kilowatts per unit with the potential for higher total power as surface activity grows. Reaching that aggregate figure almost certainly requires multiple reactor units, which makes a modular approach built around smaller reactors a logical stepping stone rather than a retreat from ambition.
Industry Solicitations Signal a Shift to Hardware
The program has moved well past concept sketches and trade studies. NASA wrapped up its initial phase of design work and shifted toward an industry feedback process that included a draft Announcement for Partnership Proposals (AFPP), a dedicated industry day, and a revised second draft. According to the agency’s Fission Surface Power overview, the second draft AFPP was posted on December 5, 2025, with the final solicitation expected in early 2026, setting the ground rules under which companies like Lockheed will compete or partner with NASA to build flight hardware rather than paper designs.
The procurement is structured around Artemis compatibility, meaning bidders must show their reactor can integrate with the landers, rovers, and surface habitats already in development by NASA and commercial partners. For a 5 to 10 kW unit, that constraint is actually an advantage: lower mass and smaller radiator panels translate to fewer integration headaches with commercially developed lunar landers that have strict payload limits and constrained deck space. A reactor at that scale could power a small science outpost, run an in‑situ resource utilization experiment to extract oxygen or water from regolith, or keep a habitat’s life-support systems alive through the two-week lunar night while a larger 40 kW system is still being qualified on Earth, giving NASA real operating data to feed back into later, higher-power designs.
Why a Smaller Reactor Is Not a Lesser Reactor
Most coverage of the Fission Surface Power program treats the 40 kW system as the singular goal and frames anything smaller as a downgrade, but that framing misses the strategic logic. The initial Artemis concept awards established 40 kW as the target class for a single unit, yet NASA’s own planning documents emphasize total available power rather than the output of any one reactor. If the end-state goal is 100 kilowatts or more on the lunar surface, deploying two or three 10 kW units early in the Artemis campaign builds operational experience, validates thermal management in real regolith, and provides redundancy that a single large reactor cannot match, all while staying within near-term launch and lander capabilities.
There is a real tension here between ambition and schedule risk. Building a 40 kW reactor that weighs under six metric tons and operates autonomously for a decade is an engineering challenge with no close precedent in spaceflight, especially when it must survive launch loads, landing shocks, and the abrasive lunar environment without on-site technicians. By contrast, a 5 to 10 kW system can use more conservative design margins, smaller components, and simpler deployment mechanisms, reducing both technical and programmatic risk. Rather than a lesser reactor, the compact Lockheed concept functions as a pathfinder: it gives NASA and DOE a way to meet aggressive 2030 policy deadlines, demonstrate that nuclear power can safely and reliably operate on another world, and lay the groundwork for a scalable network of reactors that together deliver the continuous, high-availability power a permanent lunar presence will require.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
