Honda and Astrobotic team up to keep the lights on through the long lunar night

Automotive giant Honda and lunar startup Astrobotic are teaming up to explore how a regenerative fuel cell system could help keep the lights on during long nights on the Moon.

The companies on Monday partnered up to study whether Honda’s regenerative fuel cell (RFC) can be integrated into Astrobotic’s LunaGrid, a scalable power service built around solar arrays. The two will conduct “illumination studies” at potential lunar south pole landing sites, and evaluate system scalability as well as hardware and software integration.

A key challenge for lunar exploration is surviving the two-week-long lunar night, when temperatures can plunge to as low as -424 degrees Fahrenheit in some regions, while solar panels sit idle. Honda’s RFC addresses that problem by storing solar power as hydrogen during the lunar day and converting it back into electricity at night, producing water as the only byproduct.

That water is then recycled into a high-pressure electrolysis system to create more hydrogen, forming what Honda calls “a closed-loop energy cycle.”

Astrobotic’s’ Vertical Solar Array Technology (VSAT) is designed to track the sun for maximum energy capture, and is planned to have a capacity of up to 10 kilowatts. The company is also developing an XL version, which would generate five times more power.

Together, VSAT would collect sunlight during the day to power the water electrolysis system, while the RFC would convert that stored hydrogen into electricity through the night.

The aim is a real moonshot: continuous, reliable power on the lunar surface.

Founded in 2007, Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic is best known for its Peregrine lunar lander, which launched at the beginning of this year but did not complete its mission. The company is also developing power and mobility systems as part of its goal of building out a lunar economy.

For Honda, the agreement marks a notable step into the space sector. The automaker has long invested in fuel cell R&D, but this is its first public agreement to put that tech to work on the moon.

The collaboration also aligns with Japan’s broader space ambitions. The country is a founding member of the Artemis Accords, a framework for geopolitical collaboration in lunar exploration, and Japanese astronauts routinely conduct research on the International Space Station.

The lunar south pole is central to NASA’s Artemis program in part because of the region’s near-continuous exposure to sunlight, and the potential vast stores of water ice there. Power systems like LunarGrid, paired with Honda’s RFC, could open the door to more ambitious future missions, and eventually, a sustained human presence on the Moon.