The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched Artemis II this week, beginning its string of upcoming lunar missions.
NASA’s Artemis II 10-day, four person mission is to verify Orion spacecraft and systems that are designed to travel into deep space with people on board. The mission involves circling around the moon before heading back to Earth.
Artemis II, which is the first time in 50 years a flight traveled to the moon, is the precursor to Artemis III, that aims to land back on the moon. NASA and the Department of Energy are working together to deploy a lunar nuclear reactor on the moon by 2030.
In a request for information (RFI) released March 25, the Air Force is looking for input from companies interested in deploying nuclear reactors at its bases.
The RFI listed on procurement database sam.gov says the service is interested in 1 megawatt to-300-megawatt microreactors and small modular reactors (SMRs), not large-scale reactors. Interested companies will need to be able to design, license, fuel, construct and deploy SMRs, the RFI says. Responses are due April 19.
Efforts to deploy advanced nuclear reactors at U.S. military installations have accelerated amid a broader policy push by President Donald Trump to expand domestic nuclear energy and streamline regulatory pathways. The Army’s parallel effort with the Department of Energy, called the Janus program, involves an Army-regulated nuclear reactor at a U.S. military installation by September 2028. Recent directives from the White House frame on-base reactor deployment — particularly microreactors — as a national security priority, so much so that Trump wants defense-related nuclear energy efforts exempt from the National Environmental Policy Act.
Holtec International’s subsidiary SMR-300 has completed the United Kingdom’s Generic Design Assessment (GDA) this week.
This regulatory milestone advances the reactor to UK deployment and gives the SMR-300 a clear pathway for additional international deployments, Holtec said in its Tuesday press release. The GDA was conducted by the UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation, Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales.
The company also said that it is making progress in its development plans with EDF Energy for the Cottam site in Nottinghamshire, UK. The companies plan to convert the former coal-fired Cottam site to contain data centers powered by Holtec’s SMR-300 reactors.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has hired Matt Pociask as its general counsel and Michael Franovich as to lead the Office of Nuclear Reactor Research Wednesday.
Pociask’s appointment will be effective immediately and he will replace acting general counsel David Taggart, who has been in that position since August 2025. Pociask previously served as principal deputy general counsel since February. Taggart will now work as a special advisor for strategic coordination of regulatory and policy integration.
Franovich’s appointment will be made effective in July. Prior to this new role, Franovich served as the deputy office director for engineering in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation since February 2025.