Balerion Senior Associate Aidan Daoussis sits down with Joseph Pawelski, Co-founder & CTO of CisLunar Industries, to discuss power infrastructure for space. CisLunar Industries is a space technology company focused on building scalable, intelligent hardware that transforms power to run space. Pawelski explains why power is the foundational bottleneck for satellites, electric propulsion, lunar industry, and future orbital infrastructure, and how CisLunar’s modular power systems are designed to enable higher-performance spacecraft, line-replaceable upgrades, and eventually the power architectures needed for cislunar logistics and lunar operations.
00:01 – Introduction to the webinar and CisLunar Industries’ mission: building scalable hardware that transforms power to run space.
00:40 – High-level explanation of the company: converting raw spacecraft power into usable forms for buses, propulsion systems, and payloads.
01:23 – Pawelski’s background in thermal fluids and high-speed manufacturing, and the original motivation for founding CisLunar Industries.
02:17 – The company’s early focus on in-space metal processing, lunar materials, and industrial infrastructure for off-world development.
03:00 – Why the company shifted from metals and foundries toward power systems as the true foundational layer of space industry.
04:05 – What spacecraft power systems looked like before CisLunar: bespoke, low-volume, long-lead-time hardware with limited flexibility.
04:57 – CisLunar’s modular “Lego-like” approach to spacecraft power systems and why standardization matters for scaling space hardware.
06:16 – Description of the product as a compact module that improves efficiency and reduces thermal burden on spacecraft.
06:28 – Why higher-efficiency power electronics matter: lower heat loads, simpler integration, and improved spacecraft performance.
07:20 – What more power unlocks in practice, including propulsion, sensing, communications, and data throughput.
07:54 – Power requirements for future defense sensing architectures such as Golden Dome and why radar performance scales with available power.
08:25 – How higher-power electric propulsion changes spacecraft maneuverability and begins to rival traditional chemical propulsion in responsiveness.
09:35 – LEO-to-GEO and other high-energy transfers with electric propulsion, and how higher power can reduce transfer times from months to days.
10:20 – The role CisLunar could play in future infrastructure such as space-based solar, orbital data centers, lunar industry, and directed energy systems.
10:43 – Directed energy and power beaming as dual-use technologies that can dramatically augment spacecraft power availability.
12:08 – Discussion of early customer segments, including commercial satellite operators, defense-related programs, and emerging orbital infrastructure providers.
12:50 – Space stations, tourism, and other commercial orbital systems as future beneficiaries of modular high-power architectures.
13:26 – How CisLunar’s modular design philosophy can scale from small satellites to larger platforms such as stations and other high-power systems.
14:31 – Major company milestones, beginning with NASA work on space debris processing and electromagnetic induction furnace technology.
14:58 – Early breakthrough: using electromagnetics to levitate and manipulate molten metal in vacuum, creating a foundation for later power applications.
15:17 – Turning one of the company’s electromagnetic systems into a Hall thruster power processing unit in just a few weeks.
15:39 – Progress to date with multiple Hall thrusters and ongoing work to integrate solar power conversion and propulsion power systems into a single architecture.
16:23 – Discussion of nuclear fission, nuclear electric propulsion, and the company’s involvement in SPAR, a 100-kilowatt nuclear-electric propulsion effort.
17:25 – How the same power-conversion technologies for nuclear electric propulsion can also support lunar surface nuclear power systems.
18:13 – Why megawatt-class lunar power is the threshold where in-situ resource utilization begins to make economic sense.
18:53 – CisLunar’s role in future fission-powered lunar infrastructure: acting like the “General Electric” of space power distribution and conversion.
19:02 – Visual explanation of how reactor-generated electrical output would be converted, stepped up, transmitted, and managed for multiple loads.
20:20 – The need for high-voltage conversion, efficient transmission, and energy storage to make lunar power grids practical.
21:02 – Pawelski’s view of the market: total power on orbit may need to increase 20x by 2030, even before accounting for data centers.
22:26 – Why power demand in space is likely to grow exponentially, mirroring long-term growth in terrestrial energy consumption per person.
22:44 – The chronological order of likely power-hungry applications: sensing, dynamic maneuver, hybrid propulsion, and eventually lunar industry.
23:16 – Power requirements for synthetic aperture radar, missile defense sensing, and “maneuver without regret” architectures.
24:18 – The long-term shift toward lunar-sourced resupply, refueling, and industrial support for satellites and deep-space systems.
25:22 – Reflection on whether this time is different from prior lunar industrial visions and why current launch economics and public interest may make it real.
26:26 – Discussion of orbital data centers, launch-cost constraints, and the thermal-management challenge of computing in space.
27:20 – Why thermal rejection, not just launch cost, is a major bottleneck for orbital data centers.
28:02 – Edge compute in GEO, lunar orbit, and other remote environments as a more immediate and practical use case for space-based computing.
29:11 – Vision of a future with multiple specialized stations, refueling depots, service nodes, and transportation links throughout cislunar space.
30:00 – Timeline for early orbital servicing, refueling, and augmentation systems to become standard operating infrastructure around 2030.
30:31 – Line-replaceable units as a near-term step toward true on-orbit servicing and spacecraft maintenance.
31:44 – Analogy to terrestrial hotels and logistics systems: sustainable space habitation requires deep supporting infrastructure in power and transport.
33:00 – How the company balances near-term revenue with longer-horizon infrastructure ambitions.
33:23 – Shift in the business from predominantly government-funded work toward a largely commercial revenue base.
34:00 – The strategic importance of swappable propulsion and power modules as future integrated products.
34:33 – Dual-use opportunities in defense, resilient on-orbit power, and why CisLunar sees itself as a “picks and shovels” supplier for the coming space buildout.
35:17 – Directed energy and power-beaming as an increasingly accepted category, and CisLunar’s role as enabling hardware provider rather than end operator.
36:02 – Line-replaceable units as a practical procurement pathway for defense customers.
36:36 – Thoughts on whether solar panels will remain dominant in cislunar space versus the growing role of fission, fusion, and beamed power.
37:39 – Why solar remains hard to beat near Earth and the Moon, even as nuclear options become more attractive for certain missions.
38:57 – Lunar hotels and settlement: power, logistics, servicing, and transportation as the stepwise foundations for eventual tourism and sustained habitation.
40:35 – A terrestrial analogy for the progression of space infrastructure: from frontier caravans to railroads to highways.
41:57 – Audience question on other “pick and shovel” opportunities, including sensing, x-rays, directed energy, quantum imaging, and nuclear electric propulsion.
43:45 – Whether CisLunar can keep up with demand as the industry scales and whether power-conversion hardware becomes standard on most spacecraft.
44:22 – Comparison to prior manufacturing experience: scaling robust hardware far beyond competitors and potentially becoming the default supplier.
45:22 – Supply-chain strategy, including onshoring critical semiconductor components to reduce risk.
46:20 – Near-term roadmap: launches, Hall thruster PPUs, high-voltage systems, an x-ray payload, and several additional flights already booked.
47:29 – Long-term aspiration to have dozens of systems on orbit within a few years and hundreds by 2030.
47:35 – Framing CisLunar not just as a product company but as a platform capability that could underpin the power grid of future space operations.
48:01 – Potential monetization beyond hardware, including metering and power-management systems for future orbital utilities.
48:33 – Discussion of future competition, why competition validates the market, and why continuous improvement is essential in space.
50:33 – How CisLunar plans to stay ahead through lower cost, better performance, economies of scale, and exposure to demanding edge-case programs.
51:40 – Why solving harder electronics problems in areas like fusion and ultra-high voltage makes the company’s core space products stronger.
52:33 – Closing takeaway: power scales everything in space, and CisLunar’s mission is to transform power to run space.
