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Zeno gets a chance to use its nuclear heater on the moon

Illustration: Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander on moon's surface with radioisotope heater unit highlighted by blue glow
An artist's conception shows Firefly's Blue Ghost lander on the moon's surface during the lunar night, with Zeno Power Systems' radioisotope heater unit highlighted by a blue glow on the left side of the lander's top deck. (Firefly Aerospace Illustration)

A nuclear-powered heater built by Zeno Power Systems is slated to fly to the moon aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander for a demonstration mission that could take place as early as 2028.

Zeno’s Seattle engineering hub played a leading role in developing the radioisotope heater unit, which will be powered by americium-241, a radioactive isotope typically recovered from recycled nuclear material.

The unit will provide 5 watts of thermal energy — enough to sustain the lander through the lunar night, which lasts 14 Earth days. Firefly’s first solar-powered Blue Ghost lander, which touched down on the moon in March 2025, operated successfully through the lunar day but gave up the ghost shortly after sunset.

“Our first Blue Ghost mission gave us firsthand insight into the moon’s extreme thermal environment, where we measured temperatures ranging from more than 230 degrees F during the lunar day to below -275 degrees F at night,” Ray Allensworth, Firefly’s vice president of spacecraft, said today in a news release. “Now we’re looking forward to advancing technologies that can extend missions beyond sunset and support long-duration surface operations required for NASA’s Moon Base initiative and the growing lunar economy.”

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Partners plan to make machines for moon construction

Interlune prototype excavator being tested on rocky patch of land
Interlune and Vermeer worked together to test a full-scale prototype of an excavator with auxiliary components. (Interlune / Vermeer Photo)

Seattle-based Interlune is expanding its partnership with Vermeer, an Iowa-based industrial equipment manufacturer, to develop construction tools for use on the moon.

The two companies forged their initial strategic partnership to further Interlune’s plans to extract helium-3 from tons of moon dirt and rocks, also known as regolith. Their full-scale prototype of a lunar excavator was unveiled a little more than a year ago.

At the time, Interlune was focused on mining helium-3 and bringing it back to Earth for applications ranging from quantum computing to medical imaging and nuclear fusion. But a major shift came in March when NASA announced a 10-year, $30 billion initiative to build the infrastructure for a moon base.

Interlune co-founder and CEO Rob Meyerson said he and his teammates realized that the partnership with Vermeer could support NASA’s plans. “We went back to Vermeer … and we decided that it made sense to formally expand the partnership to focus on all these other things that we’ve had in mind,” Meyerson told me.

For example, a lunar construction project is likely to involve building roads, compacting surfaces, digging trenches for underground utilities and moving rocks to clear space for a habitat. Heavy equipment might be needed to build protective berms around nuclear reactors.

Vermeer’s president and CEO, Jason Andringa, said he’s up for the challenge. He noted that before taking charge of the business his grandfather founded nearly 80 years ago, he was a staff engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“When I left NASA and came to work for Vermeer, my hope always was to be able to re-merge my passion for aerospace, specifically for the human exploration and human colonization of the moon and Mars, with my coming back to my family business … and use what I knew Vermeer was best at on Earth to do important work on the moon and Mars,” he told me.

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NASA funds research into nuclear heaters for astronauts

Collage of illustrations highlighting NASA-funded research projects, including picture of astronaut working on moon with a glowing heater on backpack
This collage highlights some of the projects selected for funding through the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, including a study looking at radioisotope heating systems for moonwalking astronauts, depicted at center left. (NASA Graphic)

NASA says it’s funding a new batch of far-out research projects, including a study evaluating how radioactive heaters can keep astronauts warm while they work on the moon.

The heating project was proposed by Zeno Power Systems, a nuclear battery company with operations in Seattle, California and Washington, D.C. It’s one of 18 projects selected for nine-month, $175,000 Phase I grants by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program. For decades, NIAC grants have helped researchers test concepts with potential space applications.

Zeno’s research project is led by A.C. Charania, the company’s senior vice president of space business development. Charania previously spent two years as NASA’s chief technologist and five years in management roles at Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture.

The project comes with an acronym taken from J.R.R. Tolkien’s tales of Middle-earth: EARENDIL, which stands for Extended Astronaut Radioisotope-EVA in Nighttime and Deep-Space Icy Landscapes. In “The Silmarillion,” Eärendil is a half-Elven mariner who voyaged to the Undying Lands. As described in Zeno’s proposal, EARENDIL technology would warm space voyagers while they work outside during the frigid lunar night, amid temperatures that can plunge as low as 410 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (-246 degrees Celsius).

Zeno is already developing a new class of compact nuclear devices powered by the heat of radioactive decay. One type of device would convert that heat into electricity, but the device proposed for EARENDIL would function strictly as a heater rather than a battery.

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Mars Society plans to put research station in Seattle

Researchers dressed in spacesuits walking in the desert with habitat buildings in background
Two analog astronauts trudge toward the Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. (Mars Society Photo)

The Mars Society is planning to build a Pacific Northwest research station suitable for simulating missions to the moon or Mars, in partnership with South Seattle College.

The nonprofit space advocacy group announced today that its executive director, James L. Burk, and the college’s president, Monica Brown, have signed a 10-year memorandum of agreement establishing the partnership.

The plan calls for the Mars Society to lease land on the college’s 87-acre West Seattle campus and build the research station, contingent on funding. Both parties will raise funds from aerospace companies and other donors to support construction, with the goal of opening the station at the start of the 2027-2028 academic year.

The agreement provides for the creation of a joint space studies curriculum and certificate program; a student capstone project and internship program tied to industry partners; and a regional workforce pipeline and community engagement effort.

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Interlune comes up with a cool way to produce helium-3

Interlune engineers working with helium-3 extraction equipment in lab
Mechanical engineer Sam Heyd, Chief Technology Officer Gary Lai and chemical engineer Brenden Pelkie operate the Cold Capture system in Interlune’s Cryogenic Lab at the company’s Seattle headquarters. (Interlune Photo)

Seattle-based Interlune says it has managed to produce 99% pure helium-3 from a standard supply of industrial-grade helium, marking a milestone for a technology that the company aims to use on the moon.

The process, known as Cold Capture, could be profitably used on Earth even before Interlune begins lunar mining operations.

Only 0.000137% of the world’s helium exists in the form of helium-3, as opposed to the much more common helium-4 isotope. But helium-3 is uniquely suited for use as a refrigerant for quantum computers. It can also be used in radiation detectors, medical scanners and eventually fusion reactors.

Because of its rarity and utility, the price of helium-3 can range as high as $20 million per kilogram ($9 million per pound). Interlune is betting on the proposition that helium-3 is more abundant and easier to access on the moon, due to the lunar surface’s exposure to the solar wind. If Interlune’s business model works out, it will be able to turn a profit by delivering lunar helium-3 to Earth for industrial applications.

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NASA considers sending spare Mars rover to the moon

Engineering rover at JPL
An engineering development version of the NASA Mars rover takes a spin at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. (NASA via YouTube)

NASA is considering repurposing an engineering development version of the nuclear-powered Mars rovers for a different destination: the moon’s south polar region.

The plan calls for turning the test rover, which is currently sitting at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, into a lunar explorer named PROMISE (“Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping and In-Situ Exploration”).

During an update on the space agency’s long-range plan to build a moon base, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman stressed that the PROMISE mission was still being defined, but added that “there’s very little that would hold us back from making use of that hardware.”

NASA is already planning to send a rover called VIPER (“Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover”) to the moon by the end of next year. But Carlos García-Galán, NASA’s program manager for the Moon Base effort, said PROMISE would bring some capabilities that VIPER lacks.

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NASA backs dozens of projects on the space frontier

Illustration: Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark 2 lander on lunar surface
An artist’s conception shows the Blue Moon Mark 2 lander on the lunar surface. (Blue Origin Illustration)

NASA has selected proposals from 37 companies, including several with Seattle-area connections, to further its plans to establish a long-term presence on the moon and enable human exploration of Mars.

The companies applied to partner with NASA under the terms of an Announcement of Collaboration Opportunity, or ACO. The selected proposals aim to develop technologies for space transportation, planetary surface operations and lunar surface infrastructure.

“We are empowering American industry to become active partners in NASA’s missions to the moon, Mars and beyond,” Greg Stover, director of the Advanced Research and Technology Division in NASA’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate, said today in a news release. “By tapping into commercial industry, NASA can rapidly develop key capabilities to support its most ambitious missions while fostering the nation’s robust space economy.”

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NASA chooses Blue Origin to deliver moon buggies

Illustration: Blue Origin Blue Moon lander with Astrolab rover on moon's surface
An artist’s conception shows Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander lowering an Astrolab rover to the lunar surface. (NASA Illustration)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has won NASA’s nod to deliver crew-carrying rovers to the lunar surface as part of the space agency’s decade-long plan to create a base near the moon’s south pole.

“America is returning to the moon,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said today during a news briefing at the space agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. “We are working alongside our many international and commercial partners to leverage the incredible capabilities from commercial industry to build a moon base for all we hope to accomplish in this endeavor.”

NASA awarded Blue Origin an initial $188 million contract to get its robotic Blue Moon Mark 1 lander ready to deliver lunar terrain vehicles, or LTVs, with an option period worth an additional $280.4 million for two task orders. The option period will be based on Blue Origin’s performance during the initial contract phase, NASA said.

Carlos Garcia-Galan, program manager for NASA’s Moon Base program, said the LTVs will be “a mix between the Apollo lunar roving vehicle and the Mars-style rover.” Each rover will weigh a little less than one metric ton, he said, and will be folded up to fit on Blue Origin’s lander during transit to the moon.

The first LTV is due to be brought to the moon in advance of the Artemis 4 mission’s crewed landing, which is currently scheduled for 2028, Garcia-Galan said.

One of the LTVs will be built by California-based Astrolab, with Seattle-based Interlune serving as a subcontractor. In a LinkedIn post, Interlune said it would work with Astrolab on “many aspects of the rover development, involving the science of survival in the lunar environment.” The Interlune Research Lab in Texas will develop varieties of simulated moon dirt specifically for testing Astrolab’s moon rover, which has been designated CLV-1.

The other LTV will be Colorado-based Lunar Outpost’s Pegasus rover, which is being developed in partnership with General Motors, Goodyear and Leidos.

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Crypto investor plans to ride Starship around Mars

Chun Wang
Chun Wang works on his laptop with Earth looming outside the window of SpaceX's Dragon capsule. (Chun Wang / SpaceX via X / 2025)

Chinese-born cryptocurrency investor Chun Wang has become the latest deep-pocketed space enthusiast to set his sights on a trip around Mars. But first, he wants to take a ride around the moon on SpaceX’s Starship. And SpaceX is willing to work with him.

Wang shared his ambition today during a SpaceX webcast focusing on the first attempt to launch a next-generation Starship V3 rocket from SpaceX’s Starbase in Texas for a test flight. The launch attempt had to be called off due to technical difficulties with ground equipment, but SpaceX could try again as soon as May 22.

During a lull in the countdown, the webcast team cut to an interview with Wang, who was speaking from Bouvet Island, a rugged nature reserve in the South Atlantic Ocean that’s been called the world’s most remote island. It was an apt setting for a conversation about Wang’s out-of-this-world idea.

Wang already qualifies as a space traveler: Last year, he headed up a privately funded mission that sent him and three other crew members into polar orbit in a SpaceX Dragon capsule for three and a half days. Today, SpaceX launch commentator Dan Huot said Wang is already back in line to take on “the first interplanetary mission on a Starship,” even though the rocket is still in testing mode and hasn’t yet made a single orbit around Earth.

“It’s going to be a flyby mission of Mars,” Wang said. “A lot of people are talking about how Mars will be like: ‘We’re going to fly to Mars, we’re going to land on Mars, we’re going to build a city on Mars.’ But let’s get this started with a flyby. … It will light the fire. It will ignite the imagination, and it will build the momentum.”

No timetable was given for the mission, but SpaceX said the round trip would take two years. Wang wasn’t worried about getting bored during the cruise to and from the Red Planet. “This is actually my style of fireworks,” he said. “I can stare at the map view on airplanes all the way from takeoff to landing. So I think I will enjoy the trip.”

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Pentagon releases UFO files from moon trips and more

Apollo 17 image with three light-colored dots highlighted in inset
An image from NASA's Apollo 17 mission in 1972 shows lunar terrain with an inset photo highlighting three light-colored specks. (NASA Photo)

The Department of Defense has released a fresh batch of images and transcripts relating to reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena, formerly known as UFOs, including pictures and descriptions from NASA’s Apollo missions to the moon.

Today’s release on the War.gov website was the first in a series planned by the Trump administration’s Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, or PURSUE. “Additional files will be released by the Department of War on a rolling basis,” the Pentagon said in a news release.

The batch includes pictures taken by astronauts on the moon during Apollo 12 in 1969 and Apollo 17 in 1972, with enlarged sections highlighting what appear to be bright spots or streaks in the sky. There’s even a transcript from the Gemini 7 mission in 1965, in which astronaut Frank Borman describes a “bogey” and a debris field consisting of “hundreds of little particles.”

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