page_title: MH-1A
section_title: Design
hierarchical_section_title: MH-1A / Design
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of analog simulator, control room MH-1A
context_page_description: MH-1A was the first floating nuclear power station. Named Sturgis after General Samuel D. Sturgis, Jr., this pressurized water reactor built in a converted Liberty ship was part of a series of reactors in the US Army Nuclear Power Program, which aimed to develop small nuclear reactors to generate electrical and space-heating energy primarily at remote, relatively inaccessible sites. Its designation stood for mobile, high power. After its first criticality in 1967, MH-1A was towed to the Panama Canal Zone that it supplied with 10 MW of electricity from October 1968 to 1975. Its dismantling began in 2014 and was completed in March 2019.
context_section_description: The MH-1A was designed as a towed craft because it was expected to stay anchored for most of its life, making it uneconomical to keep the ship's own propulsion system.
  It contained a single-loop pressurized water reactor, in a 350-ton containment vessel, using low enriched uranium (4% to 7% ²³⁵U) as fuel.
  The MH-1A had an elaborate analog-computer-powered simulator installed at Fort Belvoir. The MH-1A simulator was obtained by Memphis State University Center for Nuclear Studies in the early 1980s, but was never restored or returned to operational service. Its fate is unknown after the Center for Nuclear Studies closed.
caption: MH-1A control room simulator at Fort Belvoir.
exif: {}