WASHINGTON — Zeno Power Systems was awarded a $30 million contract to construct a radioisotope-powered satellite for the U.S. Air Force by 2025.
The four-year contract is a “strategic funding increase” agreement that gives $15 million in government funds, matched by $15 million from private investors, the corporate’s co-founder and chief executive Tyler Bernstein told .
Zeno, a startup founded in 2018, develops radioisotope power systems (RPS), a variety of nuclear energy technology that converts the warmth from decaying nuclear materials directly into electricity.
Bernstein said the corporate designed an RPS concept for small satellites with the goal of constructing the technology more accessible. NASA for a long time has used RPS to power deep-space probes however the technology has not been commercialized resulting from cost and high regulatory hurdles.
Zeno’s RPS is smaller and uses lower-materials. Bernstein expects the system to clear regulatory hurdles and be approved for launch in 2025, profiting from a more streamlined U.S. government review process for nuclear-powered space missions.
The corporate pitched the RPS idea to the Air Force Research Laboratory in 2019 and won several small business innovation research contracts. The STRATFI agreement was signed in August 2022.
Bernstein called the STRATFI deal a “key validation” of RPS as a viable technology to power military spacecraft. To fund its share of the project, the corporate will draw from its $20 million in Series A enterprise capital raised last 12 months.
The military wants satellites that may maneuver without having to fret about running out of fuel, Bernstein said. RPS would support that goal.
Lt. Col. Thomas Nix, U.S. Space Force project manager at AFRL, said the technology would “enable constant maneuverability between different orbits, unlocking recent capabilities for the Department of Defense.”
Satellites would have “at all times on” power for years at a time, Nix said.
How RPS works
Bernstein cautioned that RPS shouldn’t be confused with nuclear electric propulsion that relies on fission reactors.
“We should not a fission reactor. We’re a radioisotope source,” he said.
RPS is more akin to a nuclear battery that uses the warmth generated by the decay of a radioactive isotope to supply electricity.
“It’s really hot rocks in a box,” said Bernstein.
Radioisotopes decay over a long time and produce heat. Zeno developed a technique to capture that heat and convert it to electricity using a solid state device called thermoelectric generator. The difference in temperature between the recent interior and the cold vacuum in space creates electricity.
A small device the scale of a shoebox generates electricity for a long time, Bernstein said.
A key feature of Zeno’s system is that it doesn’t depend on plutonium or strontium.
NASA’s planetary missions use RPS fueled by plutonium 238 isotope, which is in brief supply and never commercially available. The Department of Energy produces barely enough plutonium 238 to support key NASA missions.
The Air Force previously has used the isotope strontium-90 as an influence source but its applications are limited resulting from its large mass and low efficiency, Bernstein noted.
Zeno’s RPS uses a distinct variety of nuclear waste product as fuel, but the precise name isn’t yet being disclosed on the request of the Air Force. Bernstein said the isotope chosen is “in abundant supply.”
The primary demonstration of Zeno’s RPS heat source will happen this summer at a Department of Energy lab.
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Regulatory hurdles
The deployment of a satellite powered by small nuclear batteries typically would face enormous regulatory obstacles however the approval process was made easier by a 2019 executive order from the Trump administration that overhauled the launch approval process for space nuclear systems.
Before that policy change, there had been just one process to approve launches of any spacecraft with nuclear power systems, no matter its makeup and size.
The 2019 order established a three-tier system for reviewing payloads carrying nuclear power systems based on the quantity of radioactive material on board and the probability of certain radiation exposure levels within the event of an accident. The approval process also looks at de-orbiting procedures at the top of the mission life.
Spacecraft that fall in the primary two tiers might be approved by their sponsoring agency and an interagency panel, and only the highest-risk third tier missions require presidential authorization.
Bernstein said the lower-tier missions can now work through the Federal Aviation Administration, “for the primary time allowing a business entity to launch a nuclear power system spacecraft into space.” Zeno is pursuing launch approval as a tier-one mission.
Earlier this 12 months, Zeno’s payload review application was accepted for review by the FAA, said Bernstein, and a launch approval could come as early as 2025.
The corporate’s focus is to qualify RPS for small satellites that the Space Force would deploy, but business applications are also envisioned.
“We see opportunities within the lunar space economy,” Bernstein said. “Immediately all of the landers which can be going to the lunar surface are going to operate for 14 days through the lunar day and freeze through the lunar night.”
“We’re on the dawn of the business space nuclear era,” he said. RPS would supply enough heat and power so landers can operate for years and “enable a sustainable lunar economy in the long run.”
The way it began
Zeno Power today has 25 employees based in Seattle and within the Washington, D.C. area.
The opposite co-founders are Jonathan Segal, who’s chief operating officer; and Jacob Matthews, chief technology officer.
The three met at Vanderbilt University where Bernstein and Segal were undergraduates. Matthews was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point working on a master’s degree in mechanical engineering focused on RPS technology for space.
“We got together and commenced pursuing this back in 2018,” Bernstein said.
Zeno’s senior mission director, Tim Frazier, previously ran the Department of Energy’s RPS program and helped construct NASA’s Cassini and Recent Horizons missions.
One other executive at the corporate, Lindsey Boles, is a former director of engineering at TerraPower, a nuclear reactor design and development company founded by tech billionaire Bill Gates.