A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 4:02 AM Pacific time on March 30, 2026, carrying 119 payloads into Sun-synchronous orbit on the Transporter-16 rideshare mission. Among them was Momentus Vigoride 7, an orbital service vehicle hosting a suite of demonstrations from DARPA, the U.S. Space Force, NASA, and a Colorado startup that most people outside the space power community have never heard of. That startup, CisLunar Industries , launched its EPIC power processing unit (PPU) on this flight under a NASA Flight Opportunities contract. The technology, designed to handle 1 to 100 kilowatts at greater than 95% efficiency, is aimed squarely at the infrastructure problem that will define whether humanity's next push to the Moon succeeds or stalls: getting power where it needs to go, at the scale it needs to be, without adding prohibitive mass to every spacecraft in the stack. SpaceX Transporter-16 lifted off March 30, 2026, carrying 119 payloads to Sun-synchronous orbit. Credit: SpaceX The Power Problem in Cislunar Space Every major system planned for cislunar space, from lunar landers to propellant depots to surface habitats, runs on electricity. And every one of them needs power processing hardware that takes raw power from solar panels or nuclear reactors and converts it into the clean, stable, precise voltages that thrusters, sensors, heaters, computers, and radios actually require. Current power processing technology has two persistent problems: it's heavy relative to the power it handles, and it's not designed for the kind of flexibility that a dynamic cislunar economy demands. A spacecraft that needs 5 kW today and 50 kW tomorrow (because it's now hosting a manufacturing module or a high-power communications relay) can't easily adapt. Most PPUs are designed for one job at one power level. CisLunar Industries, headquartered in Loveland, Colorado, was founded to change that. Their EPIC product line, short for Electric Power Intelligent Conversion, is a software-defined architecture that scales modularly from 1 kW to 100 kW. The hardware uses advanced semiconductor switching to achieve greater than 95% conversion efficiency across that range. On a mission where every kilogram costs tens of thousands of dollars to reach orbit, and tens of times more to reach the Moon, efficiency and mass directly translate to mission economics. What Makes EPIC Different Standard power processing units are application-specific: built for one thruster at one power level. EPIC is software-configurable, meaning the same hardware can be reprogrammed to serve different loads, different voltages, and different duty cycles. For long-duration cislunar missions where mission profiles evolve after launch, that flexibility is not a nice-to-have. It's a requirement. >95% Conversion Efficiency 1–100 kW Power Range (Scalable) 3rd Space Mission for CisLunar 119 Payloads on Transporter-16 10 Demo Payloads on Vigoride 7 $2.6M Seed Funding Raised AI-generated image The EPIC PPU hardware is designed for space environments: radiation-tolerant, thermally optimized, and software-configurable across a wide power range. Credit: AI-generated visualization Vigoride 7: A Flying Testbed for the Space Economy CisLunar Industries' EPIC demo didn't launch alone. It rode aboard Momentus Vigoride 7, one of the most densely packed technology demonstration missions ever assembled for a single orbital service vehicle. The mission drew participation from the U.S. Space Force (via SpaceWERX), DARPA, NASA's Johnson Space Center and Armstrong Flight Research Center, and a half-dozen commercial companies. Together, these payloads collectively address almost every critical capability gap in the coming cislunar economy. AI-generated image Vigoride 7, Momentus' orbital service vehicle, carries 10 demonstration payloads and operates for approximately 10 months in Sun-synchronous LEO. Credit: AI-generated visualization Momentus CEO John Rood described the mission as "a historic leap forward for in-space logistics and autonomy capabilities." That language is not unusual for a press release, but the payload manifest backs it up. The vehicle carries over 300 kg of demonstration hardware, operates on up to 3 kW of peak power, and is managed from Momentus' mission control in San Jose. Payload Sponsor What It's Testing EPIC PPU CisLunar Industries / NASA Scalable power processing, 1–100 kW range SpaceWERX RPO Demo U.S. Space Force Autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations NOM4D DARPA ($4.2M) In-space assembly of modular structures NASA R5-S10 CubeSat NASA JSC / Armstrong Formation flying, Wi-Fi inter-satellite links Orbit Fab Podracer Orbit Fab / AFRL IR imaging for space domain awareness Portal Space Systems FC Portal Space Systems Radiation-hardened avionics Solstar Deke Solstar Space Persistent Space Wi-Fi communications DPhi Clustergate-2 DPhi Space AI-enabled onboard data processing The payload mix reveals something important about where government and commercial attention is converging: the "plumbing" of space. Rendezvous and proximity operations are what enable refueling and servicing. In-space assembly lets you build structures larger than a rocket fairing. Power processing, communications, and advanced computing make all of it work in practice. These are not science experiments. They're foundational capabilities for a permanent human presence beyond low Earth orbit. Why On-Orbit Power Processing Matters for the Moon The connection between a rideshare payload in Sun-synchronous LEO and the Moon program isn't obvious at first glance. But it runs deep. NASA's baseline lunar surface power architecture relies on fission surface power systems that produce around 10 kW to start, with plans to scale to 40 kW per unit. The Lunar Gateway's Power and Propulsion Element generates 60 kW via solar electric propulsion. Starship's proposed in-space manufacturing applications require high-voltage power for processing. Every one of these systems needs PPUs to distribute and condition that power. The EPIC hardware addresses three specific use cases that CisLunar Industries has identified as gaps in the current market. Electric propulsion PPUs for Hall-effect and ion thrusters, where CisLunar's MOD-PPU-1000 (400–1000W, under 3 kg) and MOD-PPU-6000 (6,800W, under 9 kg) compete on mass and efficiency. High-voltage power supplies for applications like electron beams, directed energy, and high-powered communications. And general power conditioning for in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (ISAM) applications. Three Markets EPIC Is Targeting • Electric Propulsion: PPUs for Hall-effect and ion thrusters across 400W to 6,800W range. Lighter and more efficient than legacy designs. • High-Voltage Applications: Ultra-High Voltage Power Supplies (10 kV to 300 kV output) for directed energy, electron beams, and advanced sensors. • In-Space Manufacturing: Scalable power conditioning for ISAM operations, including metal processing, 3D printing in space, and debris remediation. AI-generated image Power beaming from orbital platforms to lunar surface installations is one long-term application CisLunar's technology is designed to enable. Credit: AI-generated visualization The NASA Flight Opportunities program that funded this demo, managed out of Armstrong Flight Research Center, exists specifically to close the gap between promising hardware that works in a lab and hardware that has flight heritage. Without that heritage, most mission planners won't accept the risk. This mission is CisLunar Industries' third spaceflight, and the first orbital test of its PPU technology at any scale. If the hardware performs as specified over the 10-month Vigoride 7 mission, the company will have the data it needs to bid on much larger contracts. A Colorado Startup Building Space Infrastructure CisLunar Industries is not a large company. The Loveland, Colorado team raised a $2.6 million seed round led by the Colorado ONE