March 6th, 2024 | beyondearth

I had the privilege of participating in a recent invitation-only workshop hosted by the DARPA LunA-10 project, an ambitious initiative to develop foundational concepts for an optimized and integrated lunar infrastructure.

Beyond Earth first connected with the leader of this DARPA initiative, Michael “Orbit” Nayak, when he participated in the Beyond Earth Symposium last November. In this blog, I hope to provide some highlights that stood out to me. It is not meant to be a comprehensive report on the event.

The LunA-10 project seeks to move away from isolated, self-sufficient lunar missions and instead focus on creating a series of shareable, scalable systems that can interoperate. By doing so, the goal is to minimize the lunar footprint and create monetizable services for future lunar users.

DARPA has selected 14 companies to participate in the 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study. These companies will explore the design of an integrated lunar infrastructure framework that can support peaceful U.S. and international use. The study aims to catalyze the setup of a future civil lunar framework by rapidly developing technology concepts for systems that can operate jointly and create monetizable services.

I should note that some critics are concerned that DARPA is engaging in industrial policy by selecting what the government thinks are leading Cislunar commercial space ventures.  I do not intend to get into the middle of that debate except to say that DARPA officials appear sensitive to the concern and emphasize that (a) this initiative is of limited duration and  (b) they fully recognize that the marketplace will ultimately determine the winners and losers.

Michael “Orbit” Nayak led the workshop, the purpose of which was to identify gaps in the project and discuss improvements. Orbit instructed the attendees that the workshop was not to be technology-driven and that there would be no pitching of technology ideas.

Liz Hyde of the US Geological Survey gave an overview of the scope of LunA-10 and the infrastructure elements that would be integrated into comprehensive lunar operations. Essentially, the LunA-10 plan is oriented toward identifying, extracting, processing, utilizing, and transporting lunar materials via robotic means. Ms. Hyde, along with Shawn Britton of NASA, was a member of the LunA-10 GIT (Government Integration Team).

Wearing my Beyond Earth hat, a significant infrastructure element that I felt was missing was a reference to the human habitat systems. Any significant lunar operations would have humans in the loop, in my opinion. Several others in the room shared this view. As Orbit explained, DARPA chose to leave the human dimension out of this study. In response to my comment on this, NASA’s Shawn Britton offered that the Artemis Moon program would provide the human presence piece, which negated the need for human facilities to be considered in the scope of LunA-10. While I am still unclear on this point, I understand that any study must have manageable and limited parameters.

Each of the 14 ‘Performer’ companies presented their technologies and how they respectively fit into the LunA-10 framework. With each presentation, you could see how the mosaic of capabilities come together to enable a robust lunar operation. That said, the presentations seemed to be a first-cut exercise. Exactly how the technologies could integrate was yet to be fully developed.

There were many remarkable technologies presented. It would be too much to share them all, but here are some of the highlights:

• Blue Origin’s lunar landers and power generation system.
• Honey Bee’s Lunar Saber is a 100-meter-tall power tower that can collect and transmit power across the lunar surface.
• Nokia’s cell service communication tech will be tested on Intuitive Machines' next lander mission. A Nokia transponder will be mounted on an IM rover that will move away from the lander and test the signal capability.
• Redwire made an interesting announcement that they would not be pursuing space-based solar power capability as they could not close the business case for the technology.
• Cislunar Industries is making a really cool ISRU processing facility that can process lunar regolith and recycle waste metals. They can also fashion raw metals into valuable objects, like beams, rail, and sheet metal. It made me want to take a closer look at their tech.
• ICON shared its method for making landing pads and roads on the Moon.
• Northrop Grumman is working on a lunar rail car system for transporting lunar material from one place to another. Unlike most presenters, they went so far as to estimate that such a system would have a market of $2 Billion to $13 Billion and require an investment of $9 Billion.
• SpaceX, of course, touted its Starship vehicle as the workhorse for all activities on the moon. It was interesting how many concepts presented during the day assumed the availability of Starship lander in their models.

Much of the discussion on the second day was on financing and managing the risk of commercial lunar development.

The most vocal participant was Bruce Cahan of Stanford University, one of the best thinkers on how we could finance large-scale space infrastructure. He provided details for a Space Commodities Exchange, something he has advocated for some time. He told the group that it is time to “leave the Truman Show,” referencing a Jim Carrey movie and implying that we will not be able to finance large commercial space projects with the financial mechanisms currently in place.

There was a very long discussion on insuring lunar activities. Underwriters David Jonas and Alison Wynne from Brown and Brown Insurance discussed how they would approach insuring lunar missions, which would be determined by various factors and analysis. There was some discussion about how much the government should indemnify commercial activity.

Orbit Nayak seemed satisfied with the quality of engagement of the workshop participants. He announced that there would be a compendium of papers from the project to be published in 2025 and that all were invited to contribute. He modeled the book after the 1985 publication Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21^st Century by the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

To me, the underlying objective of the LunA-10 initiative is how we can coordinate efforts to access and utilize the resources of the Moon. I agree that developing the infrastructure necessary for lunar mining is fundamentally essential. What was not addressed sufficiently in this meeting is the purpose for which we are accessing these resources. There was a series of ‘User Requirement’ presentations, but they mostly fell short of representing complete business models.

Again, I accept that such questions are beyond the scope of this study. Nevertheless, if we are to fully utilize the Moon's resources, we also need to look at the high-value products and services that will spring from this activity. And the human dimension is most certainly part of that equation. 

Steve Wolfe is the President & Co-Founder of Beyond Earth Institute. Read more about Steve’s background and role at BE here.