Latvian nuclear power startup Deep Space Energy has secured \u20ac930,000 ($1.1 million) in funding to develop a compact radioisotope power generation system designed to keep spacecraft operating through the Moon\u2019s two-week-long lunar night, the company said.<\/p>\n
The funding package includes a \u20ac350,000 pre-seed investment round led by Outlast Fund and NanoAvionics co-founder Linas Sargautis, as well as \u20ac580,000 in grants and public contracts from the European Space Agency, NATO\u2019s DIANA innovation program, and the Latvian government.<\/p>\n
Founded in 2022, Deep Space Energy is working on a system based on a dynamic converter paired with a modified Stirling engine. The company says the design could be significantly more efficient than conventional radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), which are commonly used on deep-space missions.<\/p>\n
While Stirling engines have historically raised reliability concerns because of moving components, the company said its design uses a single piston to reduce failure risk while improving efficiency. Chief Executive Mihailis \u0160\u010depanskis said the approach could dramatically cut fuel requirements.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery simply, we need five times less radioisotope fuel compared to electric generators, and this is actually the game changer,\u201d he said. \u201cAs we speak right now, there is no reliable and scalable supply of radioisotope material.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deep Space Energy has tested the technology under laboratory conditions and plans to use the new funding to continue research and development and expand its engineering team. The company aims to integrate the system into spacecraft subsystems capable of supporting long-duration missions.<\/p>\n
In the near term, the technology could extend the operational life of lunar rovers by enabling them to function during prolonged periods without sunlight. Longer term, the company sees applications in commercial activities such as resource prospecting and potential lunar mining.<\/p>\n
The system could also be used on satellites in Earth orbit as a backup power source, potentially reducing reliance on redundant hardware and improving resilience.<\/p>\n
Deep Space Energy is targeting a demonstration mission in 2029, likely using a non-nuclear electrical simulator to gain flight experience before regulatory approval is obtained for flying radioactive materials. Operational deployments could follow in the early 2030s, depending on demand and licensing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that by 2035, the surface of the Moon [will be] full of small rovers\u2026all of them should survive lunar night and should operate without the Sun,\u201d \u0160\u010depanskis said.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Latvian nuclear power startup Deep Space Energy has secured \u20ac930,000 ($1.1 million) in funding to develop a compact radioisotope power generation system designed to keep spacecraft operating through the Moon\u2019s two-week-long lunar night, the company said. The funding package includes a \u20ac350,000 pre-seed investment round led by Outlast Fund and NanoAvionics co-founder Linas Sargautis, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6495,246,244,831,571,6496,358,6497,6498,6009,6110,6499,6500,6501,6502],"class_list":["post-20231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-deep-space-energy","tag-esa","tag-europe","tag-european-space-agency","tag-latvia","tag-linas-sargautis","tag-lunar-missions","tag-lunar-night","tag-mihailis-scepanskis","tag-moon-exploration","tag-nato-diana","tag-outlast-fund","tag-radioisotope-power","tag-space-nuclear-technology","tag-stirling-engine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20231"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}