The US just lately introduced plans beneath its Lunar Fission Surface Power Project to deploy a small nuclear reactor on the moon by the early 2030s. It may very well be the primary try to ascertain a everlasting nuclear power supply past earth orbit, signalling the beginning of a brand new period in space.
While photo voltaic vitality can power some easy moon-based actions, it’s constrained by the two-week-long lunar nights and the shortage of daylight on the poles. For a sustained moon and Mars presence, people’ vitality independence thus turns into a crucial enabler. This can also be why the US’s lunar nuclear programme is notable.
Promise of nuclear power
In conversations on this subject on the earth, nuclear power usually options in its place that’s compact, dense, and dependable.
Devices referred to as radioisotope thermoelectric turbines (RTGs) have powered the Voyager spacecrafts’ odyssey by the photo voltaic system. They convert warmth launched by the sluggish decay of plutonium-238 nuclei into electrical energy, and are resistant to mud and darkness. But RTGs solely produce a couple of hundred watts of electrical power, sufficient for devices however inadequate for human habitats or industrial operations.
Compact fission reactors are the following leap. About the scale of a transport container, these reactors can generate tens to tons of of kilowatts, and can power life help, laboratories, and manufacturing models.
The subsequent leap on the demand facet will likely be industrial operations like in-situ useful resource utilisation, which may convert Martian water ice into rocket gas and oxygen, which want over 1 MW of steady power. Sunlight alone can’t reliably provide this magnitude past the earth’s orbit. This is the place nuclear power reactors are enticing.
On Mars, reactors buried beneath the regolith might take benefit of the pure shielding to guard tools and inhabitants from cosmic radiation whereas producing massive quantities of vitality. The thought of deploying such reactors on the moon itself is profitable, the place they may also help preserve heat habitats for explorers, course of ice for water and rocket gas, and recharge batteries for floor mobility autos.
Incremental advances in nuclear power have enabled new applied sciences that have been as soon as confined to science fiction. Beyond RTGs, there’s now nuclear thermal propulsion, the place a propellant is heated by nuclear decay and expelled from nozzles. The DRACO programme in the USA will take a look at this know-how in lunar orbit by 2026. If it really works, the journeys to Mars might change into a number of months shorter, slashing crew publicity to galactic cosmic rays.
In nuclear electrical propulsion, reactor-generated electrical energy ionises a propellant, providing years of environment friendly thrust for deep-space probes and cargo missions.
Legal vacuum
The worldwide framework for nuclear power in space relies on the 1992 United Nations Principles Relevant to the Use of Nuclear Power Sources in Outer Space (UNGA Resolution 47/68). These Principles impose a number of procedural and security obligations on launching states for techniques used to generate electrical energy.
Three Principles in specific are related. No. 3 mandates nuclear power sources to be designed and constructed to forestall the discharge of radioactive supplies in each regular and emergency circumstances. No. 4 requires rigorous pre-launch security analyses to ensure the likelihood of unintended launch is acceptably low. No. 7 additional aligns with current space treaties by requiring immediate and clear emergency notification to any doubtlessly affected state in the occasion of a malfunction or reentry involving radioactive supplies.
However, this framework is proscribed. The Principles tackle solely RTGs and fission reactors meant for electrical energy era, and not nuclear thermal/electrical propulsion techniques. And whereas they name for security assessments, they don’t set up binding technical requirements for reactor design, operational limits, and end-of-life disposal.
Crucially, as a General Assembly decision, the Principles are non-binding, that means they provide steering however no enforcement mechanism. This leaves important governance gaps. Among different potentialities, states can start testing compact fission and propulsion reactors succesful of working far past the earth orbit with out being compelled to deal with security.
Beyond these Principles, the Outer Space Treaty, the Liability Convention, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty collectively solely provide partial protection. For occasion, even when they’re all thought-about collectively, there are not any binding protocols to forestall radioactive contamination of celestial our bodies or to control reactors jettisoned on the finish of a mission.
Without such protocols, nuclear contamination might irreversibly alter pristine extraterrestrial environments lengthy earlier than humankind totally understands them. The pressure between security and worldwide entry can also be paramount. Asthe European Space Agency’s particular advisor for political affairsKai-Uwe Schrogl has famous: “Establishing ‘safety zones’ around nuclear power plants on celestial bodies must not lead to national appropriation or the restriction of freedom of use for other actors.”
Responsible race
As the human presence in the photo voltaic system expands, vitality will change into crucial and vitality sources will change into strategic.
For now, whereas the Outer Space Treaty forbids nations from putting weapons of mass destruction in earth orbit, it’s silent on nuclear propulsion for peaceable functions. The Liability Convention addresses harm attributable to space objects however isn’t clear about accidents involving nuclear reactors in cis-lunar space or past.
For these causes, we have to replace the authorized framework posthaste to match nations’ technological capabilities or threat accidents that would have long-lasting penalties throughout state boundaries. In reality, if such an accident does happen, the promising nuclear daybreak will rapidly devolve right into a nuclear twilight, if not a second Cold War.
India’s second
India itself stands at a strategic inflection level. An alliance of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Department of Atomic Energy may very well be highly effective. A domestically developed space reactor might power lunar operations in completely shadowed craters, allow steady in-situ useful resource utilisation on Mars, and general reveal India’s management in deep-space innovation.
But each in India and all over the world, a accountable nuclear future wants to start with reform. The UN’s 1992 Principles ought to be up to date to explicitly embrace propulsion reactors, set up security benchmarks, and outline end-of-life disposal requirements. The UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space must undertake binding environmental protocols to control protected launches, stopping contamination, and disposing of nuclear techniques. To this finish a multilateral oversight mechanism modelled on the International Atomic Energy Agency might certify designs, confirm compliance, and improve transparency.
This mentioned, know-how alone can’t safe our future. Without a coherent authorized and moral framework, efforts to broaden nuclear applied sciences in space might give method to battle.
India in specific may also help by championing protected nuclear practices, and do for space vitality what it as soon as did for non-aligned diplomacy: form norms for a multipolar period by balancing ambition with restraint.
Shrawani Shagun is a researcher specializing in environmental sustainability and space governance.
Published – December 02, 2025 06:00 am IST