Jane Edwards
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has selected 14 companies for a seven-month capability study that seeks to develop technology concepts to advance an integrated, multiservice commercial lunar infrastructure.
Under the 10-Year Lunar Architecture Capability Study, the companies will collaborate to design systems-level platforms spanning multiple lunar services, including lunar power; communications, navigation and timing; mining and commercial in-situ resource utilization; construction and robotics; and transit, mobility and logistics, DARPA said Tuesday.
DARPA launched the LunA-10 program in August.
“LunA-10 has the potential to upend how the civil space community thinks about spurring widespread commercial activity on and around the Moon within the next 10 years,” said Michael Nayak, program manager at DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office.
“LunA-10 performers include companies both big and small, domestic and international, each of which brought a clear vision and technically rigorous plan for advancing quickly towards our goal: a self-sustaining, monetizable, commercially owned-and-operated lunar infrastructure,” added Nayak.
DARPA will ask the selected companies to provide a briefing by April 2024 and deliver a final report by June 2024.
The LunA-10 program selectees are:
- Blue Origin
- CisLunar Industries
- Crescent Space Services
- Fibertek
- Firefly Aerospace
- GITAI
- Helios
- Honeybee Robotics
- ICON
- Nokia of America
- Northrop Grumman
- Redwire
- Sierra Space
- SpaceX
