• “Nuclear energy has the possible to considerably boost the duration of future Lunar missions and their scientific worth,” UK Space Agency says.
• Rolls-Royce has been operating on a Micro-Reactor system “to create technologies that will give energy necessary for humans to reside and operate on the Moon.”
• The UKSA will now give £2.9 million (about $three.52 million) of funding for the project.

Rolls-Royce has been operating on a Micro-Reactor system “to create technologies that will give energy necessary for humans to reside and operate on the Moon.”

Lorenzo Di Cola | Nurphoto | Getty Pictures

LONDON — The UK Space Agency stated Friday it would back study by Rolls-Royce hunting at the use of nuclear energy on the moon.

In a statement, the government agency stated researchers from Rolls-Royce had been operating on a Micro-Reactor system “to create technologies that will give energy necessary for humans to reside and operate on the Moon.”

The UKSA will now give £2.9 million (about $three.52 million) of funding for the project, which it stated would “provide an initial demonstration of a UK lunar modular nuclear reactor.”

The new income builds upon £249,000 offered by the UKSA to fund a study in 2022.

“All space missions rely on a energy supply, to help systems for communications, life-help and science experiments,” it stated.

“Nuclear energy has the possible to considerably boost the duration of future Lunar missions and their scientific worth.”

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Rolls-Royce is set to operate with a variety of organizations on the project, like the University of Sheffield’s Sophisticated Manufacturing Investigation Centre and Nuclear AMRC, and the University of Oxford.

“Creating space nuclear energy provides a exclusive opportunity to help revolutionary technologies and develop our nuclear, science and space engineering expertise base,” Paul Bate, chief executive of the UK Space Agency, stated.

Bate added that Rolls-Royce’s study “could lay the groundwork for powering continuous human presence on the Moon, though enhancing the wider UK space sector, generating jobs and producing additional investment.”

According to the UKSA, Rolls-Royce — not to be confused with Rolls-Royce Motor Vehicles, which is owned by BMW — is aiming “to have a reactor prepared to send to the Moon by 2029.”

The news out of the U.K. comes at a time when NASA is pushing ahead with its Artemis system, which is focused on generating what it calls a “sustainable presence on the Moon to prepare for missions to Mars.”

NASA is operating with international and industrial partners on Artemis. In July 1969, Neil Armstrong became the very first individual to set foot on the moon.