Canadian Space Mining Corporation|Société canadienne des mines spatiales

Purpose

CSMC is actively developing Canada’s only space Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) — the Low Enriched Uranium Nuclear Reactor (“LEUNR”) — a flagship capability to help establish Canada’s international leadership in an increasingly strategic and competitive domain for space nuclear. The proposed work seeks to validate the conceptual performance of the reactor through representative, unfueled testing on CSMC’s analog reactor, and inform CSMC’s work to raise LEUNR’s readiness from its TRL 4/5 Conceptual Design to a TRL 6 Detailed Design by the end of the project. Commercial space activities have been growing rapidly for the past decade as space agencies, militaries, and private entities race towards long-duration missions, lunar bases, and Mars exploration. CSMC’s LEUNR MMR represents a singularly compelling solution to address the renewed and urgent need to develop modular, safe, and scalable fission solutions for space.