Antares Industries

Antares Industries (operating as Antares Nuclear, Inc.) is a Los Angeles-area nuclear energy company designing and manufacturing factory-produced, deployable fission microreactors for mission-critical applications on Earth, in space, and underseas. Their flagship product, the R1 Microreactor, delivers 100 kWe to 1 MWe of electrical power for 6+ years and is engineered around a TRISO coated particle fuel prismatic graphite core, passive sodium heat pipe thermal management, and a simple recuperated nitrogen closed Brayton power conversion cycle. The system is designed for transportability with an integrated shielding and transport cradle, automated control systems with hardware-in-the-loop digital twins, and a vertically integrated supply chain that includes in-house nuclear-grade graphite machining and heat pipe fabrication. In June 2026, the company achieved a landmark milestone when their Mark-0 reactor achieved criticality at Idaho National Laboratory under the DOE Reactor Pilot Program - becoming the first U.S. microreactor to do so under an accelerated modern timeline.

Antares targets power-constrained, high-value markets where conventional energy sources are insufficient: Department of Defense installations, forward operating bases, NASA lunar surface missions, undersea systems, and commercial edge-computing and extractive-industry applications. The company was the first in the nation to receive an approved Nuclear Safety Design Agreement (NSDA) for a reactor, the first U.S. microreactor to receive a DOE HALEU fuel allocation, and has secured partnerships with Idaho National Laboratory, Savannah River National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Their 145,000-square-foot headquarters, "Antares Prime," in Redondo Beach, CA, serves as a vertically integrated R&D and manufacturing facility, complemented by an Idaho Falls, ID office close to INL testing infrastructure.

Antares is critically significant to the U.S. energy supply chain because it represents one of the fastest-moving advanced reactor development programs in the country, aiming to restore America's capability to design, build, and test nuclear hardware on compressed timelines. By targeting defense, space, and other mission-critical applications first, Antares is establishing the industrial base, regulatory precedents, licensing pathways, and supply chain infrastructure for next-generation compact reactors - including HALEU fuel agreements with Urenco and a selection for the Air Force's Advanced Nuclear Power Initiative (ANPI) at Joint Base San Antonio. Their roadmap calls for a full-power, electricity-producing commercial prototype reactor (Mark-1) by 2027 and customer deployments starting in 2028.