Lunar Outpost

Based in Colorado, Lunar Outpost focuses on commercial space robotics, lunar surface mobility and in-situ resource utilization by manufacturing rovers and instruments to explore the moon and mine its resources. The company is currently using two proprietary technologies to deal with these challenges; 1) Mobile autonomous prospecting platform (MAPP) - a small form-factor Lunar Rover for carrying payloads and is capable of autonomous swarm navigation and 2) The Canary - an Internet of Things (IOT) air quality sensor array that is used by governments, industries, and communities to collect and analyze local air quality. The startup claims that its flagship rover, the MAPP, would be the first commercial rover to the lunar south pole in 2024 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

As of 2024, Lunar Outpost had planned three more missions, including the Lunar Voyage 2 and 3. Lunar Voyage 2, in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU APL) and NASA, would explore Reiner Gamma to investigate the magnetic anomaly on the lunar surface. The three mission launch dates had not been finalized as of September 2024.

Key customers and partnerships

 The company was set to launch its first lunar mission in 2024 to the south pole of the Moon to test communications infrastructure and demonstrate the capabilities of MAPP and would have worked alongside Intuitive Machines and Nokia to integrate and test the first ever 4G/LTE technology on the lunar surface and check its viability for future space-related missions. They have also secured a second mission in conjunction with NASA and John Hopkins University to explore the Reiner Gamma region of the lunar surface in early 2024. Other partnerships of the company include MIT, US Airforce, as well as acquiring Destiny space systems in February 2022. In January 2023, the company executed an agreement with space mining company AstroForge to deliver the latter’s Bokkr-2 deep space vehicle into deep space.

In April 2024, the company received a Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services (LTVS) contract from NASA to explore the lunar surface as part of NASA’s Artemis mission. In August 2024, Lunar Outpost selected Castrol as the lead Mission Control Center for its Lunar Voyage 1 mission to oversee the mission’s operations and decisions.