Astral Systems was the first private company to consistently produce tritium, the fuel needed for deuterium-tritium (D-T) fusion reactions, directly in its prototype reactor. The breakthrough, announced on June 6, 2025, could remove one of the main obstacles to commercial “artificial Sun”.
In March, the team, together with specialists from the University of Bristol, conducted a 55-hour neutron irradiation of Deuterium-Deuterium, observing in real time the formation of tritium in the “lithium blanket” surrounding the Multi-State Fusion (MSF) reactor. This proved that the facility can generate neutrons and “grow” its fuel for future DT fusion reactions.
The heart of the technology is a hybrid of plasma fusion and lattice confinement fusion (LCF), in which fuel cores are embedded in a metal lattice. This approach ensures a reagent density that is hundreds of millions of times higher than that of traditional plasma and reduces the operating temperature by millions of degrees due to electron shielding. As a result, the compact reactor can simultaneously run two fusion mechanisms from a single energy source.
Mass production of tritium opens up not only the prospect of autonomous fusion power plants, but also allows for the mass production of medical isotopes, testing materials under intense neutron flux, transmuting nuclear waste, and working on new generation hybrid reactors.
“The global community is in desperate need of tritium, and we have shown that it can be produced on an industrial scale,” said Talmon Firestone, CEO of Astral Systems. The company is now focused on increasing its fusion rate to more than 10 trillion DT reactions per second to ensure an uninterrupted fuel supply for future fusion power plant prototypes.
This technology is of strategic importance for the space industry. D-T engines (Direct Fusion Drive, Magneto-Inertial or hybrid circuits) offer a specific impulse thousands of times higher than chemical rockets, which means they can shorten flights to Mars to a few weeks and send heavy payloads to outer planets without giant fuel tanks. However, the key bottleneck remained the shortage of tritium: the world’s reserves of the isotope are estimated at less than 20 kg and are rapidly declining. Astral Systems’ “cultivation” of tritium from lithium closes this gap, turning fusion engines from a bold idea into a practical tool for long-distance interplanetary and even interstellar transportation!
Do you want to imagine how much faster interplanetary travel could become when tritium reactors enter the scene? Compare today’s “chemical” routes with future fusion routes in our article “How long does it take to fly to other planets in the Solar System?”.
