A Firefly Aerospace lander heading to the moon's South Pole later this year will carry a small receiver about the size of a briefcase—and it might just unlock how humans stay powered during two-week lunar nights.
The receiver, called a LightPort, is the first real-world test of a wireless power system designed by Canadian startup Volta Space Technologies. Their vision: satellites orbiting the moon beaming solar energy down via laser to rovers, landers, and eventually human habitats on the surface. It sounds like science fiction. It's also becoming urgent.
The problem is straightforward but brutal. The moon's dark side experiences darkness for roughly 14 Earth days at a time. Temperatures plummet to minus 410 degrees Fahrenheit—colder than Pluto. Solar panels on rovers work fine in daylight, but they're useless during those long stretches. Any sustained lunar mission—whether robotic or human—needs reliable power through the night, or equipment freezes and fails.
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Start Your News Detox"This collaboration allows us to prove our LightPort receiver in a real lunar environment," Volta CEO Justin Zipkin said when the partnership was announced. The test itself is modest: capture a signal from an orbiting satellite and validate that wireless power transmission actually works 240,000 miles from Earth. But if it does, it changes what's possible on the moon.
Volta's system, called LightGrid, would work like this: receivers integrate into lunar vehicles. Satellites in low lunar orbit transmit power via laser. Steady electricity flows even during the long nights. The company has already tested the concept in labs and in the field at distances up to 850 meters. A company executive recently told Space News that powering a single rover would require beaming from three small satellites. Scaling to an entire settlement would need a fleet.
But Volta isn't alone in solving this puzzle. Astrobotic, a Pittsburgh-based aerospace company, is building LunaGrid—a network of solar-power stations connected by cables stretching miles across the surface, with small mobile robots ferrying power between them. Meanwhile, NASA has revived interest in putting a nuclear fission reactor on the moon, with a directive issued earlier this year to develop a 100-kilowatt system by decade's end.
The reality is that a functioning lunar habitat will probably need all three approaches working together. Each handles different demands and different scenarios. Volta's wireless system offers flexibility—power beamed anywhere without ground infrastructure. Astrobotic's wired grid is efficient for fixed settlements. Nuclear reactors provide steady baseload power independent of sunlight or orbital mechanics.
What matters now is that these aren't just concepts anymore. Firefly's lander will test Volta's receiver in actual lunar conditions later this year. If it works, the race to build the moon's power grid shifts into a new phase—one where multiple companies are racing to prove their approach works, and the first to succeed gains an enormous advantage in whatever comes next.
