Elevate Quantum is uniting the industry to harness the once-in-a-generation opportunity that is scaling quantum technology.
Orbital Mining Corp Prepares to Power the Moon
John Himes
February 12, 2025
Everything starts with energy.
Industry needs power. So does transportation. Without power, there’s no economy.
This is just as true on the Moon as it is here on Earth.
That’s why the Orbital Mining Corporation (OMC), a space resources startup in Colorado, is focused on creating power infrastructure for the Moon. Systems for harvesting, storing, transmitting, and selling energy need to be put in place before any other sustained economic activity can begin.
This technology is key to bootstrapping a lunar economy. While this may seem far off, there is demand for it right now. Organizations operating rockets, satellites, and other vehicles in space are looking to refuel or recharge.
Of course, NASA is customer #1. Their Artemis program is centered around returning to the Moon, establishing a durable lunar presence, and turning the Moon into a gateway for further travel into space.
“I always wanted to help humanity advance,” says Kenneth Liang, OMC’s cofounder and CTO. “Space resources is the next big thing, so I started working on lunar industry.”
Technology for the Moon’s electricity grid
When you look at illustrations of what a future lunar settlement might be like, you’ll probably see a lot of solar panels in or around the settlement. According to Liang, that’s not quite accurate.
Wherever people are living or performing economic activity on the Moon, they’ll need electricity. However, whenever a rocket lands nearby—even if it’s on a pad—it kicks up a huge amount of dust. If the solar panels are too close, that dust lands on them and creates all sorts of problems.
There will need to be at least 3 km between the solar array and the landing site. “Bridging the gap between where you’re generating energy and where you’re using it,” explains Chris Tolton, cofounder and CEO. This is the first problem OMC needs to tackle as a company.
The initial prototype takes electricity from panels at 120V, boosts it up to 800V to minimize loss, transmits it via cables, and then brings it back down to 32V at the point of use.
Creating a power converter that’s designed for the lunar environment is a serious engineering challenge. It needs to be hardened for radiation. It needs to be able to operate in a vacuum. And it must be able to withstand the lunar night, which can drop down to -200°C. For comparison, most military-grade technology is specced to operate at –55°C.
“We also had arcing issues,” recounts Liang. “One challenge on the Moon is that you need high voltage, but arcing can happen when you get a little dust inside. Then everything explodes.”
That’s definitely a problem, especially when repair technicians are literally a world away.
Overcoming these challenges has been a game of trial and error. Luckily, the OMC team doesn’t need to send their hardware to the Moon to run a test. Through their affiliation with the Space Resources program at Colorado School of Mines, they have access to an Apollo-era vacuum chamber, complete with a cryoshield that cools to -172°C.
This iterative design process has made their solution more robust. Only by testing their power converter in realistic conditions do they find system-level issues that may not show up in individual components.
On top of that, to be flight-ready, they needed to seriously reduce its mass. When they started working on this hardware two years ago, it weighed 9 kg. Now it’s down to 880 g.
So far, the results have been promising. During a recent NASA Watts on the Moon Challenge, their tech worked flawlessly in the simulation chamber, providing electricity with 100% uptime. According to a press release for the event, “The simulation required the teams’ power systems to demonstrate operability over six hours of daylight and 18 hours of darkness with the user three kilometers away from the power source.”
OMC took home second place in the challenge, which came with a prize of half a million dollars. This brought their lifetime NASA funding up to $1.2M, which has been instrumental for investing in R&D.
“To build a power station on the Moon, we need to develop all the physical components of a microgrid,” explains Tolton. “That includes power cables, substations, and more. Whether the power comes from solar, nuclear, or a hybrid, we are focused on high-availability power stations on the Moon.”
The business of becoming a utility company in space
Orbital Mining Corporation’s endgame may be to provide power to lunar miners, industries, and astronauts while producing rocket propellant for spaceships, but their business also has more near-term prospects that will help them get there.
In addition to their traction with NASA, they’re pursuing partnerships with private companies and other government organizations that could benefit from some juice on the Moon. For instance, anyone who wants to send a robot or lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) could become a customer.
“You land with everything you have for your mission,” explains Liang. “A rover can only bring solar panels on its back, and that’s limiting. But when you can recharge, suddenly you’ve increased mission capacity and lowered risk.”
NASA is currently investing $4.6B into LTV producers like Lunar Outpost and Intuitive Machines. With their onboard solar panels, these LTVs will have a limited window of operation. If they can hook into a power grid and increase their uptime, that’s a huge gain.
To become that power supplier, having a first-mover advantage will prove critical. First, there’s the potential to be the only game in town. Additionally, the mantra “location, location, location” holds just as true on the lunar surface as it does on Earth, so it’s important to secure that prime real estate before anyone else.
“On the Moon, there are some elevated locations on the South Pole that receive sunlight 80% of the year,” says Tolton. If OMC can move quickly to get set up on these desirable but scarce spots, he explains, they’ll be able to limit blackout periods to less than 70 hours, generate more electricity, and provide their customers with higher uptime.
The OMC team hopes to be providing power to customers on the Moon in six to eight years’ time, giving them a path to profitability in around 15 years. As the lunar market grows—it’s predicted to surpass a value of $170B by 2040—they want to be the utility of record.
For instance, a main focus of the space resources field at the moment is extracting water and oxygen from the lunar surface in order to create rocket propellant.
Companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are interested in these “gas stations in space,” but actually creating that fuel requires a huge amount of electricity—2.8MW, according to a study from Mines professors and other industry experts.
That same study identified a “near term annual demand of 450 metric tons of lunar derived propellant equating to 2,450 metric tons of processed lunar water generating $2.4 billion of revenue annually.”
Eventually, the industry will also mature into the extraction and processing of other resources like rare earth metals, helium-3, and construction materials for building cislunar infrastructure.
A big part of this equation is the fact that OMC is a small startup that can take on the risk to lay the groundwork for larger organizations to follow. “Terrestrial mining companies are interested in space, but they aren’t investing,” says Dr. Christopher Dreyer, professor of Space Resources at Colorado School of Mines. “They are looking at startups like the Orbital Mining Corporation to show how it can work, make it profitable, and reduce risk.”
Ultimately, OMC’s business model goes back to the fundamental truth that everything starts with power. If they can nail the technology, navigate the business challenges, and move quickly to establish an electricity grid on the Moon, they’ll be positioned to become the prime mover of the lunar economy.
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE READING?
Get more, straight to your inbox.
It all starts in Colorado
When OMC’s cofounders met at an innovation class on the Mines campus in 2022, they were both enrolled in the Space Resources masters program. Seeing an opportunity to enter NASA’s Watts on the Moon Challenge, they joined forces, won handily, and then started a company one week later.
As the company grows, they’ve tapped into Colorado’s rich tech ecosystem. “There’s a surprisingly large lunar ecosystem around Denver,” explains Tolton. Colorado has more aerospace workers per capita than any other state, brought in $38B in federal funding contracts in 2024, and is home to approximately 200 companies participating in the Artemis program, ranging from large primes to cutting-edge startups.
Space resources is an even more focused niche within the aerospace industry, and Mines is at the center of it all. Featuring the first graduate program in the field as well as hosting the Space Resources Roundtable for 25 years and counting, Mines is the place to be for anyone interested in asteroid or Moon mining.
This means OMC gets access to world-class talent, lab space complete with a valuable lunar simulation environment, and support from leading academic researchers. They’re also members of the Beck Venture Center, a startup incubator and entrepreneurship hub recently opened at Mines.
Even beyond the Golden area, they’ve found that Colorado’s tech community has the resources they need to achieve liftoff.
“In Colorado, the focus isn’t just on making money like it is in other parts of the country,” concludes Liang. “We’re here to build cool technology. Our goal is still to make money, but it’s more about the tech than anything else.”
About the Colorado Tech Spotlight
The Colorado Tech Spotlight highlights local innovations and the stories behind them. The series explores how the Colorado tech ecosystem creates an environment that promotes technological progress.
It is produced by Dynamic Tech Media and written by John Himes. Photography by Kort Duce.
Colorado Tech Insider Newsletter
Stay up-to-date on the latest innovations and the stories behind them
Keep diving into more Colorado tech
Colorado’s newest startup incubator recently opened its doors on the campus of the state’s oldest public institution of higher learning.
Did you know that most black ink comes from fossil fuels? Living Ink is changing that by creating sustainable pigment out of algae.