Overview

• Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced the program at AUSA, with the Army named executive agent under a presidential order requiring an Army‑regulated reactor in service by September 30, 2028.
• Officials outlined a near‑term timeline that targets first criticality at an Energy Department–supported reactor by July 2026 and groundbreaking for a stateside microreactor on an Army base in 2027.
• Janus will procure commercially built reactors that are owned and operated by industry using a DIU‑managed, milestone‑based contracting approach modeled on NASA’s COTS program to reach Nth‑of‑a‑kind production.
• Program leaders signaled planned funding requests in the hundreds of millions of dollars over five years and described efforts to strengthen the nuclear supply chain and domestic uranium enrichment capacity.
• Initial deployments will be stateside with an eye to future expeditionary uses, and an Army spokesperson said the goal is to power parts of 10 U.S. bases in 2027–2028 as officials emphasize small fissile inventories and domestic siting to address safety concerns.