Latvian startup Deep Space Energy has closed its pre-seed spherical by elevating €350,000, led by Outlast Fund and Linas Sargautis, an angel investor and a former co-founder of NanoAvionics.
The corporate additionally secured extra €580,000 in public contracts and grants by the European House Company (ESA), Nato Diana, and the Latvian authorities.
The funding will primarily be used to additional develop a novel radioisotopic generator towards commercialisation, in a bid to strengthen the European sovereign house and defence trade and energy Moon floor exploration.
Deep House Power is creating an influence generator expertise that’s primarily based on radioisotopes, supplies derived from nuclear waste, which generate warmth by pure decay.
In accordance with Mihails Ščepanskis, founder and CEO of the corporate, their resolution converts that warmth into electrical energy, requiring 5 instances much less radioisotope gasoline than a thermo-electric generator (RTG), at present utilized in house.
Ščepanskis says: “Our expertise, which has already been validated within the laboratory, has a number of functions throughout the defence and house sectors. First, we’re creating an auxiliary power supply to boost the resilience of strategic satellites.
“It offers the redundancy of satellite tv for pc energy programs by supplying backup energy that doesn’t rely upon photo voltaic power, making it essential for high-value navy reconnaissance belongings.”
The corporate highlighted that its radioisotope-based power generator shouldn’t be designed for any form of weapons. It would goal high-value, dual-use satellites to extend their resilience and operational reliability.
The first focus is on satellites working in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), Geostationary Orbit (GEO) and Extremely Elliptical Orbit (HEO), that are all crucial for contemporary navy reconnaissance and early-warning programs.
These satellites assist a spread of defence features, from artificial aperture radar (SAR) satellites for detecting troop concentrations by clouds and foliage, to sign intelligence for intercepting communications and radio transmissions, in addition to missile-launch detection, which is crucial for anti-missile defence programs.
Ščepanskis says that the continuing battle in Ukraine clearly demonstrated the decisive position of satellite-based reconnaissance information for contemporary warfare. In 2025, Ukraine misplaced its beachhead in Russian Kursk Oblast at a time when the US quickly terminated the sharing of satellite tv for pc intelligence.
This truth highlights the strategic significance of satellite-based reconnaissance information and likewise signifies the strategic vulnerability of Europe, which largely depends on the US defence house belongings, particularly for high-value GEO satellites.
Ščepanskis provides: “As Europe is attempting to change into extra unbiased, it’s crucial to supply satellites with superior capabilities on our personal. Our expertise offers an auxiliary power supply for satellites, which makes them extra resilient to non-kinetic assaults and malfunctions.”
In the long run, the corporate goals to concentrate on the Moon economic system. The radioisotope energy generator will tackle crucial power challenges within the subsequent part of lunar exploration, together with NASA and ESA’s Artemis, Argonaut and lunar rover programmes, in addition to the Moon Village framework.
Particularly, the expertise is designed to assist lunar evening survival and operations in completely shadowed areas, enabling prolonged scouting and prospecting missions.
On the Moon, the place the temperatures at evening drop under 150 levels Celsius, and nights final for roughly 354 hours, moonrovers can’t depend on solar energy.
The corporate’s expertise requires roughly 2 kg of Americium-241 gasoline to generate 50W of energy for a lunar rover, in contrast with round 10 kg of radioisotope materials wanted by legacy RTG programs for comparable output.
Given present projections that Americium-241 manufacturing capability will attain round 10kg per yr by the mid-2030s, this effectivity might allow lunar exploration missions to start greater than 5 years earlier and at as much as 5 instances the mission quantity.
In consequence, business lunar actions and useful resource utilisation might emerge considerably prior to beforehand anticipated.
In accordance with Ščepanskis, the corporate’s expertise can considerably improve the economics of moon rover missions by enabling them to final a number of day-night cycles up to some years. The only real bills of bringing payload to the Moon price as much as one million euros per kilogram; thus, by enhancing the lifetime of the rovers, the corporate helps to avoid wasting a whole lot of thousands and thousands.
Egita Poļanska, companion on the lead investor Outlast Fund, says that the corporate’s course aligns with the fund’s strategic objectives.
Poļanska says: “House power tech has been caught with sure limitations for many years, however we’re lastly seeing the items come collectively for an actual breakthrough – new supplies, smarter energy programs, and precise business demand for lunar operations. Deep House Power is constructing the infrastructure that can actually energy the following chapter of house exploration and trade.
“As Europe ramps up its house ambitions, we’d like our personal corporations to guide in these foundational applied sciences. We’re thrilled to again this crew and actually fairly excited to have an precise moonshot in our portfolio, in essentially the most literal sense attainable.”
Linas Sargautis has additionally participated within the spherical and joined the corporate’s management crew as an advisor, emphasising that such investments put the Baltics within the highlight as an rising house hub.
Sargautis says: “The Baltic area is more and more recognised for its innovation in house expertise, with Deep House Power serving as one other robust instance.
“By supporting Deep House Power, we’re serving to to determine a stable basis for the way forward for house frontier exploration, corresponding to lunar and deep-space missions, increasing humanity’s information and footprint, whereas additionally contributing to European house defence capabilities.
“I’m proud to assist the corporate’s journey by strengthening the crew’s connections with main house programs integrators, in addition to supporting the corporate’s growth and contracting plans to construct the required experience on the subsystem integration degree.”
Foremost picture, from left to proper: Linas Sargautis (advisor), Prof. Jānis Priede (chief scientist, co-founder), Dr. Mihails Ščepanskis (CEO, co-founder), Olga Barreto Goncalves (BD and challenge supervisor) (Photograph by: Bruno Kabucis)
