Tag: Zeno Power

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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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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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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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Inside Zeno Power’s ‘test kitchen’ for nuclear batteries

Zeno Power executives standing in front of a mural in Seattle offices
The reception area for Zeno Power’s lab features a Seattle-centric mural by Tam Riley. From left: Zeno CEO Tyler Bernstein, chief operating officer Jonathan Segal, chief product officer Lindsey Boles and chief commercialization officer Harsh S. Desai. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

Researchers are fine-tuning a recipe at Zeno Power’s office-lab complex in Seattle’s South Lake Union district — but it’s not the kind of recipe you can taste-test. Instead, this recipe specifies the ingredients for a new kind of nuclear battery, and Zeno is hoping it’ll get a glowing review.

“Our vision for Zeno is to be building dozens, and eventually hundreds of these power systems every year,” Zeno CEO and co-founder Tyler Bernstein told me during a recent tour of the 15,000-square-foot facility. “So, we want to make sure that from the early days, as we’re developing the process for how we build these heat sources, we’re doing it in a way that we can scale very quickly to meet the demand that we’re seeing from government and commercial customers.”

Zeno Power plans to demonstrate its first full-scale radioisotope power system in 2026, and deliver its first commercially built nuclear batteries by 2027. The potential applications range from powering infrastructure on the bottom of the ocean, to keeping machines operational in the Arctic, to charging up rovers on the moon.

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Zeno Power raises $50M to create nuclear batteries

Illustration: Lunar rover with nuclear battery
An artist’s conception shows a lunar rover powered by a nuclear battery. (Zeno Power Illustration)

Zeno Power, a startup that’s headquartered in Seattle as well as Washington, D.C., today announced the completion of a $50 million funding round to boost the development of nuclear batteries for maritime and space applications.

The Series B round was led by Hanaco Ventures, with participation from Seraphim, Balerion Space Ventures, JAWS, Vanderbilt University, RiverPark Ventures, Stage 1 Ventures, 7i Capital, Beyond Earth Ventures and others. The fresh funding follows a $20 million Series A round in 2022 and brings total investment to $70 million.

Zeno got its start at Vanderbilt in 2018 with the goal of creating new types of radioisotope power systems.

Radioisotope thermoelectric generators, or RTGs, have been around for decades — for example, for space missions ranging from the Apollo moonshots to the years-long treks of Mars rovers. Those power systems depended on plutonium-238, but Zeno is pioneering lightweight systems that use strontium-90 instead.

Strontium-90 is produced as a byproduct in nuclear fission reactors and could serve as an abundant fuel for power-generating systems. In 2023, Zeno worked with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to demonstrate a strontium-based heat source. The company is also looking at americium-241 as a potential fuel source for nuclear batteries.

Since its founding, Zeno has secured more than $60 million in contracts from the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA to provide radioisotope power systems for applications where traditional power sources fall short — for example, to provide long-lasting energy for seabed infrastructure, satellites and lunar landers.

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Zeno Power strikes a deal to recycle radioactive material

Aerial view of Oak Ridge National Laboratory
An aerial view shows the main campus of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. (ORNL Photo)

Zeno Power says it has gained access to radioactive material destined for its first full-scale radioisotope power systems under the terms of a partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy.

The transfer of the material from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee benefits Zeno as well as the Department of Energy: Zeno — which has offices in Seattle and Washington, D.C. — gets the strontium-90 fuel that it needs for its next-generation RPS. At the same time, the DOE gets an opportunity to put a decades-old RPS to good use instead of putting it through a costly disposal process.

“This transfer highlights another unique approach our team has taken to accelerate environmental cleanup at Oak Ridge,” Jay Mullis, manager of DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, said today in a news release. “This is a win-win scenario that’s removing a significant source of radioactivity at a savings to taxpayers, while also supporting nuclear innovation.”

Radioisotope power systems, also known as radioisotope thermoelectric generators or RTGs, have been used for decades to provide off-grid power for space missions and other applications. Such devices convert the heat generated by radioactive decay into electricity. Plutonium-238 is often used for space applications, but Zeno is working on a system that uses strontium-90 as an alternative heat source.

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Zeno and Westinghouse team up on nuclear batteries

Illustration: Cutaway view of Zeno Power's radioisotope power system
An artist’s conception shows a cutaway view of Zeno’s radioisotope power system. (Zeno Power Illustration)

Zeno Power says it has selected Westinghouse Electric Co. to process the radioisotopes for its heat sources — creating a partnership that adds a key puzzle piece to its plan for a new type of radioisotope power system, or RPS.

“Working with Westinghouse, we will build the nuclear hardware for our RPSs to provide reliable power in the most critical domains of the 21st century — from the depths of the oceans to the surface of the moon,” Zeno co-founder and CEO Tyler Bernstein said today in a news release.

Radioisotope power systems that convert heat into electricity for off-grid power have been used for decades — for example, for space missions ranging from the Apollo moonshots to the Curiosity rover mission to Mars and the New Horizons mission to Pluto. Those systems have typically used plutonium-238, but Zeno is working on systems that make use of other radioisotopes such as strontium-90.

Strontium-90, which is created as a byproduct in nuclear fission reactors, can be an abundant fuel for power-generating systems. Existing strontium-based power systems tend to be bulky, however. Zeno’s design could generate more power with less bulk, opening the way for a wider range of applications.

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Zeno wins $7.5M contract for underwater nuclear power

Illustration: Radioisotope power system on seafloor
An artist’s conception shows Zeno’s radioisotope power system on the seafloor. (Zeno Power Illustration)

Zeno Power says it’s been awarded a $7.5 million contract from the Department of Defense to build and demonstrate a radioisotope power system that can provide distributed power on the seabed.

The program, funded through the Pentagon’s Operational Energy Innovation Office and the Office of Naval Research, calls for the demonstration to take place by 2025.

Zeno maintains offices in Seattle as well as Washington, D.C., and one of its partners in the program is Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture, which is headquartered in Kent, Wash.

The objective of the program — known as Distributed Energy Provided Throughout the Seas, or DEPTHS — is to develop decentralized nodes for energy generation and distribution on the seabed. Such a system could open the way for long-endurance seafloor sensor systems and charging stations for autonomous undersea vehicles.

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Zeno Power tests a new type of nuclear heat source

PNNL team removes heat source from transfer port
Team members at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory remove Zeno Power's heat source from a transfer port. (Zeno Power Photo)

Zeno Power says it has successfully completed its first demonstration of a new type of radioisotope heat source that could be used to generate off-grid power in settings ranging from the bottom of the ocean to the surface of the moon.

The demonstration — performed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash. — took advantage of the energy provided by the radioactive decay of strontium-90. Zeno said its tests confirmed that the company’s technology can increase the specific power of its heat source compared with previously available strontium-90 heat sources.

Zeno uses radioisotope heat sources as the building blocks for its power-generating systems, which are designed to convert constant thermal energy into electricity. Strontium-90, which is typically created as a byproduct of nuclear fission, is an abundant fuel for such systems — but existing strontium-based power systems tend to be bulky. Zeno’s design could generate more power with less bulk, opening the way for a wider range of applications.

The work at PNNL involved radioactive and non-radioactive activities, including chemical processing and fuel fabrication, materials handling and heat source characterization. The test data will support further development of heat sources.

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