\n<\/p>\n
It was shaping up into another ordinary day at the Colorado headquarters of the small space startup Lunar Outpost last Friday when chief executive Justin Cyrus learned of a surprise press conference called by Jared Isaacman, the new administrator of Nasa.<\/p>\n
Cyrus\u2019s company epitomises the many private contractors of the space agency working on a myriad of projects crucial to the Artemis program that seeks to return humans to the moon, so anything Isaacman had to say about it was naturally of interest to him.<\/p>\n
What he didn\u2019t expect was the stunning announcement that Nasa was restructuring its entire strategy for the first human lunar landing in more than half a century, and was moving its astronauts to a later, scheduled 2028 launch attempt on Artemis IV.<\/p>\n
Beset by technical issues that put the Artemis program billions of dollars over-budget and years behind schedule, as well as criticism that the agency was trying to do too much too soon, Nasa made a decision with significant consequences for its many commercial partners such as Lunar Outpost, and in the process created many more questions.<\/p>\n
But in the best traditions of decades of challenging human spaceflight, Cyrus saw opportunity from adversity.<\/p>\n
Barring further delays or rethinking by Nasa\u2019s senior managers, the company\u2019s Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (Mapp) rover, a small but mighty technology-packed vehicle crucial to the agency\u2019s plans for future long-term habitation on the moon, will now journey alongside the Artemis IV astronauts.<\/p>\n
\u201cHumans will be back on the moon for the first time in over 50 years and one of our rovers will be alongside, which is a pretty awesome feeling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, selfishly, that\u2019s a pretty exciting prospect. The broader announcement I\u2019m 100% on board with, higher cadence, more missions going to the moon. It\u2019s fantastic Nasa has concrete plans on how they can accelerate things, and that opens up what we are doing in the background.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, rovers and robotic systems are critical to permanence on the moon. With Mapp, we are full steam ahead, the hardware\u2019s been done for a long time, there\u2019s a few checkouts that still need to be done for the electrical power system between the lander and the rover, and some software integration, but once that is complete, we\u2019re off to the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lunar Outpost\u2019s story is typical of young companies that have carved out an important role for themselves in a new era of public-private partnership in space, as well as experiencing \u2013 just like Nasa itself \u2013 the obstacles and frustrations of the industry.<\/p>\n
Founded by Cyrus, an aerospace veteran, and two friends in 2017, it has ambitious plans to construct and fly a number of rovers, of varying sizes and capabilities, for Nasa\u2019s use on the moon, and eventually Mars.<\/p>\n
Its largest project, the in-development Eagle lunar terrain vehicle (LTV), is billed as \u201cthe most capable crewed and cargo transport ever built\u201d for human spaceflight, and a full-size prototype impressed crowds at Florida\u2019s Kennedy Space Center visitor center last year.<\/p>\n
Mapp, meanwhile, has not enjoyed much luck to date. The rugged, much smaller rover, which was set to examine dust and soil at the moon\u2019s south pole last year, and provide vital research for a possible human moon base, did make it to the lunar surface in March, becoming the first commercial exploration vehicle to touch down.<\/p>\n
But the spacecraft on which it made the eight-day journey from Earth \u2013 the Athena lander, made by another private space operation, Texas-based Intuitive Machines \u2013 toppled on landing and trapped the rover inside. Mapp was denied its big moment, sending signals back to Lunar Outpost\u2019s headquarters in Golden, Colorado, that it was fully functioning and raring to go, but rendered helpless as its batteries slowly died.<\/p>\n
It was a huge frustration for Cyrus and his more than 200 employees who had spent years developing, building, and testing it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt got to the moon, it survived the tough landing, and unfortunately, we just couldn\u2019t get it out of the garage,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a point of pride that we survived a tough landing, but at the same time it makes it hurt just a little bit worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lunar Outpost refused to admit defeat, and workers have worked diligently and expediently since then to ready Mapp for its next try. Elsewhere in the company, work progresses apace not only on the rovers, but a host of other projects including the development of power- and oxygen-generating systems that can be utilized by humans in space, and robotic arms to act as cranes to assist moon base construction.<\/p>\n
Importantly, Cyrus said, the workforce is focused on quietly going about its own business, and tuning out the heavily publicized failures, delays and challenges facing others, such as Nasa\u2019s ongoing Artemis woes.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 on big days like today, I still have to go talk to the team like: \u2018Hey, guys, this is good, you know, this is a positive thing,\u2019\u201d Cyrus said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut truly, if my workforce is watching what\u2019s going on each and every day, worrying about how it\u2019s going to impact their schedules, they wouldn\u2019t be getting much done, right? So I would say we have a pretty positive working relationship with constant change. It sounds a little weird, I know, but you just kind of get accustomed to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, he said, Nasa will get back to the moon for the first time since the final Apollo mission in 1972, and Lunar Outpost will be standing alongside as proof that the new era of government partnering with private companies in space is essential, potentially lucrative, and sustainable.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have five missions currently signed up going to the moon, and hopefully the Eagle LTV with Nasa is going to be announced within the next couple of weeks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a step-by-step vision over the course of the next five years, and I think it\u2019s going to be fun. In fact, I think it\u2019s going to be an absolute blast.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was shaping up into another ordinary day at the Colorado headquarters of the small space startup Lunar Outpost last Friday when chief executive Justin Cyrus learned of a surprise press conference called by Jared Isaacman, the new administrator of Nasa. Cyrus\u2019s company epitomises the many private contractors of the space agency working on a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[7387,4448,23663,3698,1615,3331,1961],"class_list":{"0":"post-46243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-artemis","9":"tag-bring","10":"tag-contractors","11":"tag-humans","12":"tag-moon","13":"tag-nasa","14":"tag-pressing"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}