The US Department of the Army will award up to $2.2bn to five microreactor developers to build five reactors at military installations, with the first unit expected to come online by 2028. NucNet reported the award structure on 27 August 2026.
The awards sit under the Army's Janus Program, which the service launched in October 2025 with a target of fielding a working military microreactor by the end of September 2028. The Army named nine candidate installations in November 2025 and has now narrowed the field, pairing each of the five selected developers with a different site. Fort Hood in Texas is among the bases earmarked for a reactor.
The five companies selected are Antares Nuclear, BWXT Advanced Technologies, General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, Radiant Industries and Westinghouse Government Services. Each will carry a separate site and a separate design, which gives the programme parallel technology paths rather than a single point of failure.
The structure matters for the wider domestic supply chain. Firm federal orders give reactor vendors a revenue base to finance fabrication capacity, fuel qualification and staffing ahead of commercial utility contracts that remain years out. Several of the selected firms are also working through Department of Energy authorisation pathways and Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing for civilian versions of the same designs.
The Janus awards follow a run of federal nuclear commitments this year, including Department of Energy loan support for large reactor construction and cost shared funding for advanced light water small modular reactor deployment.
Source: NucNet - https://www.nucnet.org/news/us-army-to-award-up-to-usd2-2-billion-for-five-microreactors-at-five-sites-8-4-2026