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Army’s Janus Program to boost advanced nuclear reactors
The U.S. Army is moving forward with additional advanced reactor programs—building on multiple military efforts already underway as well as a separate pilot program at the Energy Department.
Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll and Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently revealed the joint Janus Program, named after the god of beginnings or transitions, which aims to design next-generation nuclear power to provide resilient, secure, and reliable energy, strengthening soldier readiness.
The Janus Program meets one of the four Trump administration executive orders from May, which specifically directed the military to deploy advanced reactors for national security.
Driscoll framed the program in terms of boosting U.S. military capability and expects to spend “hundreds of millions” of dollars on the program over the next five years, according to Fox News.
Earlier projects: Janus builds off Project Pele, a Department of Defense program intended to design and build a mobile microreactor from BWXT Advanced Technologies at Idaho National Laboratory.
The Army Defense Innovation Unit initially announced in June 2024 a call for nuclear reactors to be built at domestic military bases, and in April 2025 it reported that eight companies/reactor designs had been selected for potential builds through the Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations (ANPI) program.
Several of these same companies were also selected for the DOE’s Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program. Those names were unveiled in August, with Oklo and Radiant Industries participating in both the DOD and DOE programs. Under the DOE program, the goal is to get at least three reactors on line by July 4, 2026.
The Janus announcement comes after Radiant Industries signed the “first-ever agreement” to deliver a microreactor to a U.S. military base as part of a contract with the DOD’s Defense Innovation Unit and the U .S. Air Force part of the ANPI program. Radiant Industries also announced last week that it signed a contract to work to build its first microreactor on the Manhattan Project site in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
