Blue Origin just unveiled a game-changing moon vacuum that turns lunar dust into electricity, solving one of space exploration's biggest power challenges. The AI-designed battery from little-known startup Istari Digital could revolutionize how spacecraft survive the brutal two-week lunar nights that have plagued missions for decades.
Blue Origin just dropped a bombshell at Amazon's re:Invent conference that could reshape lunar exploration forever. The Jeff Bezos-backed space company unveiled a revolutionary moon vacuum that literally turns dust into electricity - and the entire thing was designed by artificial intelligence.
The breakthrough comes from Istari Digital, a startup most people have never heard of but one that's quietly revolutionizing how we design critical hardware. "So what it does is sucks up moon dust and it extracts the heat from it so it can be used as an energy source, like turning moon dust into a battery," CEO Will Roper told CNBC.
This isn't just clever engineering - it's solving one of space exploration's most persistent problems. Every 28 days, the moon plunges into a brutal two-week darkness where temperatures drop so dramatically that most hardware simply dies. Spacecraft have been constrained by these lunar nights since the Apollo era, forced to either go dormant or rely on increasingly heavy battery packs that eat into precious payload capacity.
"Kind of like vacuuming at home, but creating your own electricity while you do it," Roper explained with the kind of casual tone that belies the technical complexity involved.
But here's where it gets really interesting - the battery was completely designed by AI, not human engineers. Roper, who transformed military acquisition processes as assistant secretary of the Air Force under Trump's first administration and helped launch Space Force, says Istari has cracked the code on AI hallucinations that plague other design systems.
The company's platform creates what Roper calls "guardrails" or a "fence around the playground" that prevents AI from wandering into impossible or dangerous territory. "Within that playground, AI can generate to its heart's content," he said. The system doesn't just tell you a design looks good - it verifies that every requirement and safety standard has been met before anything goes operational.
This controlled creativity approach is already paying dividends beyond Blue Origin. Istari Digital works as a prime contractor with on the experimental X-56A unmanned aircraft, and the startup has backing from former CEO Eric Schmidt, who's been quietly investing in next-generation defense and space technologies.
