Overview
- Firefly announced on Aug. 19, 2026 that it has onboarded Zeno Power’s Survive-the-Night Package—a 5-watt americium-241 radioisotope heater unit (RHU) plus an integrated support platform—on a Blue Ghost CLPS lander targeted to launch no earlier than 2028.
- The package is built to generate about 5 watts of continuous heat from radioactive decay and to operate its own structural, communications, power, command and thermal-management subsystems during the roughly 14‑day lunar night.
- The flight is Zeno’s first space mission and is meant to demonstrate that small commercial RHUs can keep critical spacecraft components and science payloads warm and able to transmit data after sunset.
- Companies say regulatory approval, launch authorization and insurance or NASA indemnification remain unresolved and that this mission will serve as a regulatory pathfinder for commercial nuclear payloads.
- Industry backers are scaling supply chains for americium-241 and planning larger production because surviving lunar nights is seen as a key step toward long-duration surface operations, lunar infrastructure and future Moon Base support.