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Description
Request for Information Space Reactor Industrial Base Assessment THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL. DO NOT SUBMIT PROPOSALS IN RESPONSE TO THIS NOTICE. Purpose The Department of Energy (DOE) is conducting a Space Reactor Industrial Base Assessment to identify gaps in the U.S. industrial base and recommend actions to close them. The assessment is mandated by National Science and Technology Memorandum 3 (NSTM 3, April 14, 2026), which implements Executive Order 14369, Ensuring American Space Superiority (December 18, 2025). The specific mandate: assess the readiness of the U.S. nuclear reactor industrial base to produce up to four space reactors within five years , covering reactor design, long-lead-time components, and fuel allocation or production. This RFI, and the broader assessment it informs, supports DOE's mission to develop and enable the use of space nuclear power systems to advance U.S. scientific, exploration, and national security objectives — in coordination with sponsoring agencies and as directed by Space Policy Directive-6, "National Strategy for Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion" (December 21, 2020). This RFI solicits industry input to inform that assessment. It is technology-inclusive — no specific design or technology solution is presumed. What This RFI Is Asking For The goal is to identify constraints, not collect capability statements. Responses should focus on what is hard, what is missing, what is at risk, and what government actions would help. Respondents should address only the areas relevant to their expertise. Scope The assessment covers the nuclear power unit — from the reactor core through the power conversion system (PCS). It excludes the spacecraft bus, avionics, launch vehicle, and other mission-level systems. Topical Area Examples Nuclear fuel - Enrichment, fabrication, fuel forms Design capability - Workforce, nuclear data, material performance data, modeling & simulation tools Non-fuel core components - Radiation shielding, Coolant, heat transfer mechanisms, reflectors, moderators, structural components Instrumentation & control - Radiation hardened components supporting space reactor relevant temperatures, control systems and software Power conversion systems - Stirling, Closed Brayton Cycle, Other Infrastructure capabilities - Ground test facilities, irradiation facilities, integrated vehicle testing, launch safety qualification facilities, safeguards (e.g. if HEU) Parameter envelope for this assessment This assessment is technology-inclusive; respondents should therefore describe their capability against the parameter bands below rather than against any specific design, and identify which bands their product or capability can serve. Respondents whose offerings are parameter-agnostic (for example, workforce services or cross-cutting modeling tools) may note that and skip. Electrical power class — <10 kWe | 10–40 kWe | 40–100 kWe | >100 kWe Fuel form class — HALEU TRISO | HALEU metallic | HEU me…
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