Firefly Aerospace (Nasdaq: FLY), a market leading space and defense technology company, today announced a commercial payload agreement with Zeno Power Systems to deliver its Survive-the-Night Package with a Radioisotope Heater Unit (RHU) on a Firefly mission to the Moon\u2019s near side. Scheduled to launch no earlier than 2028, the mission will demonstrate Zeno\u2019s technologies designed to enable spacecraft, lunar infrastructure, and future Moon Base systems to operate through the extreme cold and prolonged darkness of the 14-day lunar night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFirefly is proud to collaborate with innovative companies like Zeno to solve one of the most complex challenges of lunar exploration\u2014surviving the lunar night,\u201d said Ray Allensworth, Vice President of Spacecraft at Firefly Aerospace. \u201cOur first Blue Ghost mission gave us firsthand insight into the Moon\u2019s extreme thermal environment, where we measured temperatures ranging from more than 230\u00b0F during the lunar day to below -275\u00b0F at night. Now we\u2019re looking forward to advancing technologies that can extend missions beyond sunset and support long-duration surface operations required for NASA\u2019s Moon Base initiative and the growing lunar economy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zeno\u2019s Survive-the-Night Package will be onboarded to one of Firefly\u2019s existing Blue Ghost mission returning to the Moon\u2019s near side as part of NASA\u2019s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. Upon landing, Blue Ghost will first operate multiple NASA CLPS payloads using solar power for the full lunar day, equivalent to approximately 14 Earth days. Zeno\u2019s payload will then operate during the lunar night and transmit operational data back to Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zeno\u2019s payload is comprised of a 5 Watts thermal americium-241 RHU and dedicated platform that includes structural, communications, electrical power, command and data handling, and thermal management subsystems. The RHU generates passive thermal energy through the natural decay of radioactive material, providing continuous heat without relying on solar power. The lightweight, compact system is designed to keep critical spacecraft components operational during the frigid lunar night, when temperatures can fall below -280\u00b0F, as well as within permanently shadowed regions that never receive direct sunlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHardware capable of surviving the extreme cold of the lunar night will be essential to enabling sustained operations on the Moon,\u201d said Tyler Bernstein, CEO and Co-Founder of Zeno Power. \u201cNASA\u2019s Moon Base Program has identified the need for technologies such as radioisotope power systems to support future lunar exploration, and Zeno is proud to answer that call to demonstrate this capability aboard Firefly\u2019s Blue Ghost mission. As demand for long-duration lunar infrastructure grows, we are building the production capacity to support future commercial and government missions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This demonstration on Blue Ghost will provide critical data to advance radioisotope and nuclear-powered technologies for future robotic and human lunar missions requiring extended operations beyond sunset. The mission builds on the success of Blue Ghost Mission 1, which achieved the first successful commercial Moon landing in 2025, and follows Firefly\u2019s upcoming missions to the Moon\u2019s far side and Gruithuisen Domes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Firefly Aerospace (Nasdaq: FLY), a market leading space and defense technology company, today announced…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[444,452,323,456,458,459,460,457,451,446,448,449,450,453,447,445,455,454],"class_list":["post-3230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-appointments-space-news","tag-europe-space-news","tag-european-space-industry","tag-european-space-news","tag-european-space-technology","tag-newspace-europe","tag-satellite-news","tag-space-companies-europe","tag-space-exploration-europe","tag-space-industry-europe","tag-space-magazine","tag-space-magazine-europe","tag-space-magazines-europe","tag-space-magazines-germany","tag-space-magazines-italy","tag-space-news","tag-space-news-europe","tag-space-startups-europe","tag-space-technology-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacepreneurmag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacepreneurmag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacepreneurmag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacepreneurmag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacepreneurmag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacepreneurmag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3257,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacepreneurmag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3230\/revisions\/3257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacepreneurmag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacepreneurmag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacepreneurmag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacepreneurmag.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}