The Canadian Space Agency has issued a request for information (RFI) inviting Canadian industry and academia to describe the technologies and capabilities they could bring to lunar microreactor work, according to American Nuclear Society. The agency's stated goal is to map where Canada holds capabilities that are distinctive or strategically valuable. The notice was reported on 9 November 2026.
The RFI treats fission power as a complement to solar panels and batteries on the Moon, covering exploration, mobility and eventual crewed operations. Respondents are asked to submit technologies at a technology readiness level of at least 2, whether those are complete reactor concepts or individual subsystems.
Why it matters
Power is one of the hard constraints on any sustained lunar presence. Solar generation and battery storage struggle through the two-week lunar night, which is why space agencies are looking at fission as a supplementary source. Canada is not attempting to build a full reactor alone: the RFI states plainly that the country does not assume a single Canadian entity would design and deliver an end-to-end lunar microreactor system. Instead, the agency is looking for the specific pieces where Canadian organizations could contribute, whether working domestically or through international partnerships.
The exercise also signals how Canada intends to position itself as lunar surface power attracts widening international interest. Rather than competing on complete systems, the agency appears to be scouting for niches across a supply chain that spans fuel, heat transport, power conversion, radiation shielding, deployment, autonomous instrumentation, launch integration and workforce development — 16 areas of interest in total.
A planning envelope, not a requirement set
The RFI sketches a reference reactor as a planning envelope rather than a formal specification. In that sketch, a lunar reactor would deliver between 20 and 80 kilowatts-electric of net continuous output, operate for at least a decade, run largely autonomously, and be capable of safe deployment, use and eventual decommissioning on a lunar mission.
The agency asks submitters to argue the case for a particular technology or architecture rather than simply listing what they have. It also outlines a possible route the CSA could take, moving from feasibility studies through ground demonstrations to flight demonstrations — a sequence that would give Canadian contributors a defined path from paper concepts toward hardware.
Radioisotopes and a new centre
The microreactor RFI is not Canada's only recent move in space nuclear technology. The CSA has funded two projects centred on radioisotope systems, and the Nuclear Innovation Institute has launched the Canadian Centre for Space Isotopes.
One of the funded projects is developing a tritium-fuelled radioisotope heating unit intended to help spacecraft endure the lunar night. The other is working on a radioisotope power system aimed at spacecraft and lunar rovers operating in harsh conditions, with the CSA's proposed lunar utility vehicle in mind.
The new centre is intended to bring together specialists from the nuclear sector, the space industry and the wider research community to advance research, policy development and collaboration between industry players.
Wider momentum
The Canadian assessment lands amid broader movement on lunar surface power. American Nuclear Society notes that NASA made establishing a lunar base one of its key focus areas earlier this year, and in September the US agency sought proposals for radioisotope power systems with particular attention to Stirling generators. For Washington, these efforts sit inside a wider push on space nuclear power that includes nuclear propulsion work for the Space Reactor-1 Freedom mission, scheduled to launch in 2028.
For Canada, the RFI is a scoping step: an attempt to take stock of what exists domestically before committing to a role. The submissions will show whether Canadian organizations can claim credible positions in specific parts of the microreactor supply chain, and whether the feasibility-to-flight pathway the agency describes gains any substance.
What to watch is how the CSA uses the responses — whether the information exercise is followed by funded feasibility work or demonstration programmes, and which of the 16 areas of interest draw the strongest Canadian proposals.
