Zeno Power: Scaling Nuclear Batteries for a Permanent Lunar Presence
CEO Tyler Bernstein is transitioning nuclear power from bespoke interstellar experiments to mass-manufactured batteries capable of sustaining NASA’s Artemis missions and deep-sea operations.
Scalable Fission for the Lunar Economy
Traditional deep-space exploration has long relied on nuclear batteries, but the current production model is ill-suited for the era of permanent lunar bases. According to Payload, Zeno Power CEO Tyler Bernstein is steering the industry away from artisanal, one-off units toward a mass-manufactured future.
Bernstein, a Thiel Fellow who pivoted from computer science to nuclear engineering after co-authoring a paper on nuclear-powered aircraft, co-founded Zeno Power in 2018. While early iterations focused on aviation, the company identified a critical gap in reliable power for contested and extreme environments, including the Arctic, the deep sea, and the lunar surface where solar arrays are insufficient.
Industrializing Radioisotopes
The technological hurdle isn't the concept—nuclear batteries have powered NASA icons like Voyager for decades—but the scarcity of fuel and the lack of production scale. Zeno intends to build hundreds of units annually by utilizing more abundant fuel sources. To meet this demand, the company established a dedicated manufacturing facility at the Vallecitos Nuclear Center in Sunol, California, in June.
With over 100 employees and secured contracts with both NASA and the Pentagon, Zeno is moving toward a scheduled lunar mission in 2028. Bernstein notes that while government and financial backing have stabilized, the burden of execution now rests solely on the private sector. The goal is to provide the reliable baseload power necessary to sustain a continuous human presence on the Moon and beyond.