LunA-10 Project

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected 14 prominent companies, including Gitai, Honeybee Robotics, Northrop Grumman, Redwire Space, and SpaceX, for the sponsored “LunA-10” project. This project focuses on the development of commercial lunar infrastructure and aims to create integrated systems for various lunar services over a seven-month study period.

The selected companies will collaborate to design new integrated systems covering lunar power, mining and commercial in-situ resource use, communications, navigation, and timing, transit, mobility, and logistics, as well as construction and robotics. Specifically, they have been chosen for the 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study, which seeks to expedite the establishment of a future civil lunar framework for peaceful U.S. and international use.

The study will focus on the rapid development of technology concepts for scalable systems that can operate jointly, creating monetizable services for future lunar users. DARPA aims to move beyond the current paradigm of isolated, self-sufficient systems towards a future framework that emphasizes integrated models of commercial activity.

Dr. Michael Nayak, program manager in DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office, emphasized the potential impact of the LunA-10 project, stating that it has the potential to revolutionize the civil space community's approach to spurring widespread commercial activity on and around the Moon within the next 10 years.

The companies selected for the project include Blue Origin, CisLunar Industries, Crescent Space Services LLC, Fibertek, Firefly Aerospace, Gitai, Helios, Honeybee Robotics, ICON, Nokia of America, Northrop Grumman, Redwire Corporation, Sierra Space, and SpaceX.