Russia is positioning itself for a new phase of the space race: building a nuclear power plant on the Moon. The project, advanced by Russia’s space agency Roscosmos in cooperation with state nuclear corporation Rosatom, aims to deploy a reactor for the planned Russian–Chinese International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) in the 2030s, potentially around 2035–2036. Moscow officials have said the goal is to create a reliable power source capable of supporting robotic explorers, scientific instruments and, eventually, a permanent base on the lunar surface.

The move comes as NASA and China are also working on their own lunar nuclear power concepts, turning energy infrastructure into a central front in the contest for long-term presence beyond Earth. Unlike the Cold War era, when prestige and flags drove competition, this new race is increasingly about kilowatts, reliability and the ability to sustain life and industry in deep space.

From Space Pioneers to Power Laggers

Russia inherits the legacy of the Soviet Union, which launched the first satellite and first human into space. Yet in recent decades it has lost ground to the United States and China in both funding and successful missions. Its most recent lunar attempt, the Luna-25 lander, crashed into the Moon in August 2023 after a failed descent burn. That failure underscored the country’s technological and financial challenges—but it did not dampen its ambitions.

In recent statements, Russian officials have framed nuclear power as both a way to leapfrog competitors and as a field where Russia retains core strengths. Rosatom is one of the world’s largest nuclear technology exporters and has been contracted to build or supply reactors in multiple countries, from Turkey to Egypt and Kazakhstan. Bringing that expertise to the Moon is a logical next step in Moscow’s narrative of technological resurgence.

The Russian–Chinese International Lunar Research Station

The proposed reactor is tied to the International Lunar Research Station, a joint Russian–Chinese project meant to rival NASA’s Artemis program and the U.S.-led Gateway station. Chinese officials have said the ILRS will rely on a combination of large solar arrays and a nuclear power plant on the Moon’s surface to provide continuous electricity at the south pole, where permanent bases are planned.

According to a presentation by senior Chinese space official Pei Zhaoyu, Beijing and Moscow envision completing a “basic model” of the ILRS by 2035, with infrastructure including pipelines, cables and power-generating units. That roadmap includes building a nuclear reactor around the same time frame to support science operations and, later, human crews. Reports from Russian envoys have separately referenced a joint plan to place a nuclear power plant on the Moon between 2033 and 2035 as part of this partnership linked to Russian space cooperation statements about providing small reactors for deep-space missions.

NASA’s Competing Vision for Lunar Nuclear Power

While Russia and China advance the ILRS concept, NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy are pushing their own lunar nuclear initiative: the Fission Surface Power project. The agency has tasked industry teams with designing a 40-kilowatt-class reactor capable of operating on the Moon for at least 10 years, independent of sunlight and local conditions. NASA says such a system could continuously power about 30 typical U.S. households’ worth of demand, enough for habitats, rovers and scientific equipment.

The agency’s goal is to demonstrate this fission system on the Moon in the early 2030s under the Artemis program. NASA’s public “fast facts” note that the reactor is being designed to be compact, under six metric tons, and able to operate for a decade without human intervention—key requirements for deployment at the lunar south pole, where Artemis is targeting a sustained human presence.

U.S. media have also reported internal discussions about accelerating a larger, 100-kilowatt-class lunar reactor by 2030 to maintain a technological edge over China and Russia in cislunar space, though those plans go beyond NASA’s formally stated 40-kilowatt demonstration target. Together, the Russian–Chinese and U.S. initiatives point to an emerging race for who will first operate a nuclear reactor on another world.

Why Nuclear, and Why on the Moon?

Solar power has been the workhorse of space missions for decades, but it faces serious drawbacks for permanent lunar bases. At the Moon’s poles, where water ice deposits make long-term presence attractive, the Sun skims the horizon, and terrain shadows can limit solar exposure. In the equatorial regions, two-week-long lunar nights plunge outposts into darkness. Nuclear fission offers continuous, high-density power regardless of lighting or local weather, and reactors can be designed to run autonomously for years without refueling according to NASA’s technical overview of fission surface systems.

For Russia and China, a surface reactor could power not only habitats, but also resource extraction equipment, communications relays and industrial-scale experiments. For the United States, reliable power is considered essential to turning the Artemis base camp into more than a temporary outpost. In both cases, nuclear technology becomes a strategic enabler: the infrastructure that turns brief visits into permanent footholds.

Legal and Safety Questions in Orbit and Beyond

The prospect of nuclear reactors on the Moon inevitably raises questions about international law and environmental risk. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty—regarded as the backbone of space law—bans placing “nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction” in orbit, on the Moon or on other celestial bodies. But it does not explicitly prohibit peaceful nuclear power sources, such as reactors or radioisotope generators, for scientific and exploratory purposes.

Legal analyses note that, as of mid-2025, 117 countries are parties to the treaty, including Russia, China and the United States, and all are obligated to use outer space “for peaceful purposes” and to avoid harmful contamination of celestial bodies.

Safety concerns are just as thorny. Decades of experience with nuclear power in space—from U.S. radioisotope generators on Voyager and Curiosity to Soviet-era nuclear-powered satellites—have produced both technical advances and high-profile mishaps. Reviews of “nuclear power in space” warn that accidents during launch, operation or end-of-life disposal could release radioactive materials into Earth’s atmosphere or onto the surface, despite modern containment designs. That risk is likely to be a major focus of public debate as lunar reactors move from paper to launch pads.

A New Strategic Frontier

Beyond power supply, the race to build nuclear reactors on the Moon signals a broader strategic contest. Long-lived energy infrastructure could anchor lunar industrial zones, support in-situ resource utilization—turning lunar ice into rocket fuel or air—and even give countries leverage over cislunar navigation and communication routes. The actor that first combines reliable power, logistics and human presence could set de facto standards for how the Moon is used.

Diplomatically, the projects also deepen alignments. The ILRS and its proposed nuclear plant consolidate a Russia–China bloc offering an alternative to the U.S.-backed Artemis Accords, which now count more than 30 signatory nations. China has floated an ambitious “555 project” for the ILRS—aiming to involve 50 countries, 500 research institutions and 5,000 researchers in the lunar base effort by 2035. For many emerging space nations, choosing a partner for lunar power could amount to choosing a geopolitical camp.

Conclusion: From Flags to Reactors

Sixty years after the first Moon landing, the symbolism of a flag in the regolith is giving way to the hard pragmatism of power engineering. Russia’s push, in tandem with China, to field a nuclear reactor on the lunar surface around the mid-2030s is both a bid to catch up to NASA and a declaration that the next space race will be fought over infrastructure as much as exploration.

Whether Moscow or Washington, Beijing or a coalition of smaller players gets there first, the arrival of nuclear power on the Moon will mark a turning point. It will test the limits of existing space law, raise new environmental and safety questions, and—if it works as planned—make it possible for humans and robots not just to visit the Moon, but to stay. In that sense, the quiet hum of a fission reactor on the lunar plain may one day be remembered as the true start of off-world civilization.