Los Alamos company SpaceNukes wins DARPA agreement for new Kilopower reactor test

LOS ALAMOS - Space Nuclear Power Corp., a Los Alamos company known as SpaceNukes, says the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded it an agreement to design, build and ground-test a new version of the Kilopower space reactor with Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The company announced the Other Transaction Agreement, under DARPA's Fast Capacitance program, known as Fat Cat, on Oct. 21. The program aims to advance autonomous reactor operation for national security missions.

The planned test would add active control rods to the Kilopower design. The 2018 KRUSTY test, run by SpaceNukes team members while at the laboratory and NASA, used a passively controlled reactor; the company calls it the only full-power ground test of a new American space reactor in five decades.

The work is phased, leading to the ground demonstration, with integration at the company's workshop in Medina, Ohio, the release says.

"This award recognizes the maturity and continuity of the team that designed, built, and tested KRUSTY in 2018," said Patrick McClure, the company's chief operating officer.

SpaceNukes, headquartered in Los Alamos, licenses the Kilopower technology from the laboratory. Chief technology officer David Poston and McClure did the KRUSTY work there.