The Department of War announced on September 9, 2026 that the U.S. Navy will install its first advanced nuclear microreactor at Naval Weapons Station Crane in southern Indiana, giving the sprawling munitions and R&D complex grid-independent power by September 2028.
Crane picked as the pilot site
Naval Weapons Station Crane, home to Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane and one of the Navy's most sensitive research and munitions facilities, will host what officials described as a commercially owned and operated "Micro Modular Reactor" (MMR). It will be Indiana's first power-producing nuclear reactor and the first military microreactor to reach operation under the Army's Janus Program, an up-to-$2.2 billion multi-vendor initiative announced in August that placed Radiant Industries, Westinghouse, BWXT, Antares Nuclear and General Atomics on the awardee list.
Energy security as warfighting capability
"Energy security is warfighting capability," Brendan Rogers, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment, said in remarks accompanying the announcement. The Navy's aim is a reactor able to deliver reliable, around-the-clock electricity independent of the commercial grid and capable of sustaining critical operations through outages, natural disasters and attacks — a capability the service has flagged as increasingly vulnerable at coastal and inland bases alike.
Timeline anchored to a 2028 deadline
The Crane deployment is one of the first concrete site selections responding to President Trump's May 2025 executive order requiring at least one operational military reactor to be in place by September 30, 2028. The Navy has not yet named the vendor for Crane, but the reactor is expected to come from within the Janus awardee pool. Site preparation, licensing, and construction milestones will be released as they are set.
Broader stakes for U.S. base power
The move follows the Air Force's parallel Advanced Nuclear Power Initiative (ANPI), which selected three microreactor developers earlier this year, and continues a trend of Pentagon interest in on-base generation that the Department of Energy has echoed with its American Leadership in Fusion Act push and its wider advanced-reactor deadlines. Once Crane is on line, the same MMR architecture is expected to serve as a template for further Navy and Marine Corps installations under Janus follow-on task orders.
Reporting based on coverage from GlobalSecurity.org, Navy Times, 14News and The Bloomingtonian.