DoD nuclear demos: Army leases, Aberdeen IMSR, Antares space reactor
- The thread: the military lane of the advanced-reactor buildout — installation power leases and defense-mission enrichment.
- 2026-09-21: Army conditionally awarded long-term leases to three companies for installation power (apparently unrelated to the Janus program); Ameresco + Terrestrial Energy to deliver an IMSR at Aberdeen Proving Ground. 2026-09-15: Antares received a $161M DoD award for a space/national-security reactor demo — same company behind the Centrus HALEU deal (smr-industrial-base thread). 2026-09-14: Army announced complete dismantlement of SM-1 (Fort Belvoir, its first reactor) — historical close-out.
- Watch for: named contractors for the three Army leases; Janus program's own award record.
- 2026-10-07→08 (microreactor lane diversifies — civilian) (1) Last Energy's micro-modular reactor at Texas A&M-RELLIS cleared its DOE Documented Safety Analysis (WNN) — moves to readiness review, the final step before fuel/Operation authorization. (2) Deployable Energy's Unity nuclear battery selected for DOE/NRIC's DOME testbed at INL (WNN). (3) BWXT's BANR selected for a New Brunswick project (Prodigy Clean Energy
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Pabineau and Eel River Bar First Nations, Belledune) — microreactor + Indigenous-partner siting goes international. These sit beside the Army's leases in the demo fleet — the D2D between defense and civilian micros is vendor-shared (BWXT, Last Energy). Watch: MARVEL criticality (coolant in, Oct 7), Last Energy's authorization, BANR's Canadian permitting.
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2026-10-22 (~7:00 AM ET, WNN — https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/radiant-microreactor-selected-for-deployment-by-us-navy): the US Navy selected Radiant's Kaleidos microreactor for deployment at Naval Weapons Station Crane, Indiana — the installation-power lane's Navy entry beside the Army's three conditional leases (Sep 21, 2026) and Antares' $161M space-reactor award; no deployment date, contract value, or licensing path in coverage. Naval Weapons Station Crane (Indiana) is distinct from the Crane Clean Energy Center restart tracked in the restart-wave thread. Watch: contract/funding details, deployment timeline, licensing route for a microreactor on a Navy installation, named contractors for the Army's three leases.