Antares Selected to Build Nuclear Microreactors at Fort Bragg

<p>The U.S. Army and the Defense Innovation Unit have selected Antares to build and operate nuclear microreactors at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, according to chief executive Jordan Bramble in an interview with Axios.</p><p><strong>Importance: </strong>The military's high energy demand for various operations, including reusable batteries, computer farms, radars, housing, and weapons, presents a significant opportunity for nuclear energy, which has seen a resurgence in recent years.</p><hr /><p><strong>Details: </strong>The agreement with Antares is part of several contracts announced under the Janus program, which is the Army's response to a White House executive order issued last year. Antares is expected to deliver its reactors in groups of three, as stated by the Army.</p><ul><li>“I think the military, for the last decade or so, has been between a rock and a hard place on energy. Most military services bifurcate how they think about energy,” Bramble said.</li><li>“We need to bring more of an operational energy mindset to our installations, here inside the U.S. We need to be able to sustain our most critical operations without the grid, without a civilian supply chain, and nuclear power is actually the best thing we have, in terms of capacity factor, to go do that,” he added.</li></ul><p><strong>Context: </strong>Fort Bragg hosts the XVIII Airborne Corps and the Army special operations and western hemisphere commands, with tens of thousands of personnel, both uniformed and civilian, stationed there.</p><p><strong>Financials: </strong>Antares did not disclose the specific dollar amount of its Janus contract. However, Bramble mentioned that the combined contract value for the Army, Air Force, and Space Force is approximately $1 billion and is rapidly increasing.</p><ul><li>“Everybody wants to sell to defense — but we started the company, we developed our technology, really focused around this market. We're already in motion,” he stated.</li><li>The company recently secured $470 million in a Series C funding round.</li></ul><p><strong>Recent Developments: </strong>The Antares Mark-0 reactor achieved criticality on June 4 at Idaho National Laboratory, marking the first reactor to do so under the Energy Department's Reactor Pilot Program, with the Army kept informed throughout the process.</p><ul><li>The reactor utilized tri-structural isotropic fuel, or TRISO, with enough fuel produced for multiple reactors.</li><li>“We actually designed our fuel around the same exact fuel spec that was developed for Project Pele,” Bramble noted. Project Pele is a mobile reactor initiative managed by the Pentagon's Strategic Capabilities Office.</li></ul><p><strong>Additional Contracts: </strong>Other recipients of the Janus program contracts include:</p><ul><li>BWXT Advanced Technologies at Fort Campbell, Kentucky;</li><li>General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems at Fort Hood, Texas;</li><li>Radiant at Fort Benning, Georgia;</li><li>Westinghouse Government Services at Fort Drum, New York.</li></ul><p><strong>Official Comments: </strong>“These are very different sorts of companies,” said Jeff Waksman, the Army's principal deputy assistant secretary for installations, energy, and environment, during a press briefing. “We believe this will be the spear tip, not just for microreactors, but for all advanced reactors in the United States,” he added.</p><p><strong>Future Considerations: </strong>The focus will be on the waste disposition pathways and the negotiations surrounding them.</p><p><strong>Further Reading: </strong><a href="https://www.axios.com/pro/climate-deals/2026/07/02/advanced-reactor-pilot-results-criticality" target="_blank">Behind the scenes of Trump's advanced reactor race</a></p>