DARPA backs a Kilopower test, Taiwan's NTHU signs with NuCube

Four pieces of nuclear and hydrogen news from October 19 to 22, 2026: a DARPA agreement for a space reactor ground test with active control rods, a Taiwanese university studying a successor to a research reactor in service for more than 65 years, NANO Nuclear hiring an Argentine pressure-vessel maker to tell it what is hard to build, and a Danish electrolyser that more than doubled its capacity inside the same plant.

SpaceNukes gets a DARPA ground test with active control

Space Nuclear Power Corporation (SpaceNukes), of Los Alamos, New Mexico, said on October 21, 2026 that DARPA has awarded it an Other Transaction Agreement under the Fast Capacitance (Fat Cat) program, which seeks to advance autonomous reactor operation for national security missions. With Los Alamos National Laboratory, the company will design, build and conduct a follow-on nuclear ground test of a Kilopower reactor incorporating active control rod operation.

The new part is the control. The 2018 Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology (KRUSTY) test, run by key members of the SpaceNukes team while they worked at Los Alamos and NASA, demonstrated a passively controlled architecture; the company calls it "the only full-power ground test of a new American space reactor in five decades." The program runs through design, procurement and integration gates, with integration at the company's workshop in Medina, Ohio. The release gives neither the award's value nor a test date.

Taiwan's NTHU and NuCube study a potential campus microreactor

National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) in Hsinchu, Taiwan signed a collaboration agreement with NuCube Energy on October 19, 2026 for technical exchanges and feasibility assessments on deploying NuCube's NuSun microreactors on its campus, NuCube said. They intend to explore two platforms: a NuSun-1 unit using thermophotovoltaic cells, and a modified version for boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT), research and potential isotope production. Professor Tsung-Kuang Yeh, dean of NTHU's College of Nuclear Science, said the school plans to install the nation's first 1 MW NuSun-1.

Taiwan's only research reactor is on a clock. NTHU's Tsing Hua Open-Pool Reactor has run for more than 65 years and is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2040, and NTHU anticipates adopting NuCube's reactor once it achieves commercial operation in the United States. NuCube is still advancing its first demonstration unit with Idaho State University under DOE's Launch Pad USA program. The release headline calls the agreement exclusive; its text never says what the exclusivity covers. NuCube's other news on October 19 was a $25 million anchor investment from Alaska's AIDEA.

NANO Nuclear hires IMPSA to check KRONOS for manufacturability

NANO Nuclear Energy (NASDAQ: NNE) said on October 21, 2026 that it has entered a three-year, non-exclusive engineering services master agreement with the US subsidiary of IMPSA, the Argentine engineering and heavy-manufacturing company, for the engineering, design-for-manufacture and potential future fabrication of critical components of its KRONOS MMR. The reactor pressure vessel is the principal component under evaluation; reactor cavity cooling systems, spent-fuel storage systems and other reactor and transportation components are named as further areas of potential collaboration.

The first job is a critique. The initial program, an estimated six months supported by a retainer, is a design review and manufacturability feasibility study expected to include an independent review of KRONOS components against ASME Section III requirements, so that fabrication constraints, inspection limits and supply-chain risks surface before manufacturing. The design's licensing runs through a research reactor at the University of Illinois, whose construction permit application, submitted March 31, 2026, the NRC docketed on May 18, per the agency's project page. The deal follows NANO's agreement, announced October 1, to buy an unbuilt plant's fuel-cycle license.

Stiesdal's 6.5 MW electrolyser enters commercial operation

Stiesdal Hydrogen's 6.5 MW HydroGen electrolyser is in commercial operation at European Energy's green hydrogen facility at Måde in Esbjerg, Denmark, the company said on October 22, 2026. The system was upgraded from 3.1 MW in September and has supplied hydrogen to offtakers at up to 6.5 MW since September 29; at nominal load the facility can now produce up to 1,270 Nm³ of hydrogen per hour.

The upgrade happened inside the existing plant: from the outside, Stiesdal says, the only visible addition is an extra converter cabinet. It prices the 6.5 MW system at EUR 3.15–3.3 million depending on volume and delivery period, about EUR 485–510 per kW by our arithmetic, and says that is approximately half the European market average of around EUR 1,000/kW for similar scope, as benchmarked by the European Hydrogen Observatory. Måde sends hydrogen by trailer to several offtakers, with demand increasingly driven by Germany's RFNBO requirements following RED III. The machine runs a pressurised alkaline stack, the same family of technology as Nel's alkaline segment, whose revenue fell 91% in the third quarter of 2026.