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Based in 2017 in Golden, Colorado, Lunar Outpost has quickly advanced from a industrial lunar mobility startup to a key participant in NASA’s Artemis program. On December 4, 2025, the corporate introduced its choice for the Artemis IV mission, marking a big transition from purely industrial operations to direct integration with NASA’s flagship crewed lunar exploration program.
The announcement marks the end result of years of technical growth and validation, together with the corporate’s March 2025 Lunar Voyage 1 mission, which made its Cell Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP) rover the primary U.S. industrial rover to succeed in the lunar floor. Though Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 lander got here to relaxation on its facet, stopping rover deployment and mission completion, a number of vital subsystems efficiently operated within the cislunar setting and on the lunar floor.
Lunar Outpost reported that particular subsystems—together with the navigation laptop, autonomous thermal management system, stereo cameras, and energy administration—achieved Know-how Readiness Stage 9, NASA’s highest maturity score, indicating a system has been “confirmed by profitable mission operations” in precise operational circumstances. Nonetheless, the rover’s mobility programs, together with its suspension, drive motors, and autonomous navigation throughout traverse, couldn’t be validated as a result of it couldn’t depart its deployment storage all through the mission.
MAPP’s Lunar Voyage 1 on the Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission. (Credit score: Lunar Outpost/NASA/Intuitive Machines)
For Artemis IV, Lunar Outpost will associate with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Area Physics (LASP) on the College of Colorado Boulder, the College of Central Florida, and the College of California, Berkeley to assist the DUSTER investigation to review lunar mud and plasma.
Not like earlier MAPP missions delivered through industrial landers, the Artemis IV rover shall be deployed instantly by astronauts on the mission’s South Pole touchdown web site. The rover will carry two LASP-built devices—the Electrostatic Mud Analyzer (EDA) and the Rest SOunder and differentiaL VoltagE (RESOLVE)—to characterize floor plasma and mud conduct throughout landings, liftoffs, and extravehicular exercise.
The mission will research each disturbed regolith from crew operations and undisturbed lunar floor circumstances, advancing NASA’s understanding of lunar area climate, electrostatic mud levitation, and micrometeoroid impacts. These knowledge are vital for crew security and long-term floor operations planning.
Lunar Outpost has developed a graduated collection of rover platforms, every engineered for particular mission profiles.
First, MAPP’s customary configuration consists of a 5 to 10 kg base automobile, which carries as much as 15 kg of payload in a forty five x 38 x 40 cm package deal. It options four-wheel drive with articulated suspension, photo voltaic panels with battery storage, and elective lunar evening survival functionality. Most velocity is 10 cm/s, with S-band and X-band communications and autonomous navigation through visual-inertial odometry.
MAPP Rover Improvement. (Credit score: Lunar Outpost)
Second, MAPP-Extremely is a 30 kg platform carrying 30 kg payloads in a 1x 2 x 1m configuration. This variant operates at 1 m/s—ten occasions sooner than the usual MAPP—with enhanced photo voltaic assortment and bigger battery capability for prolonged traverse missions.
Lastly, MAPP’s heavy-lift variant, HL-MAPP, plenty 250 kg and helps 200 kg payloads with customary lunar evening survival, and is designed for In-Situ Useful resource Utilization (ISRU) gear transport, habitat assist infrastructure, and large-scale scientific equipment deployment.
The lunar thermal setting presents excessive challenges, with floor temperatures starting from -173°C throughout the 14-day lunar evening to +127°C throughout the lunar day. Somewhat than standard Radioisotope Heater Items, Lunar Outpost is growing a number of various thermal administration options.
The MAPP collection employs a proprietary dynamic suspension system that maintains steady four-wheel contact with the floor, enabling traversal of obstacles as much as half the peak of the rover. Key elements embody impartial wheel articulation, energetic suspension dampening, and distributed torque throughout all drive motors.
For energy programs, Lunar Outpost partnered with Basic Motors to leverage superior battery expertise tailored from electrical automobile functions. Navigation programs make the most of visual-inertial odometry, together with stereo imaginative and prescient cameras and autonomous navigation capabilities. The navigation system’s capacity to offer exact real-time positioning knowledge is important for missions like Artemis IV, the place the rover should coordinate with astronaut operations on the lunar floor.
The Stargate Floor System Software program achieved TRL-9 certification throughout Lunar Voyage 1, sustaining 99.998% uptime and demonstrating readiness for Class A human spaceflight missions.
Lunar Outpost Mission Management. (Credit score: Lunar Outpost)
Lunar Outpost has secured seven contracted missions spanning industrial, scientific, and crewed operations.
The primary contract, Lunar Voyage 1, efficiently launched in February 2025, reaching vital technical milestones regardless of the lander’s off-nominal landing. The mission validated the high-performance navigation laptop, the autonomous thermal management system, the stereo navigation cameras, and the patent-pending Talon rover deployment system whereas carrying Nokia’s Lunar Floor Communications System and MIT payloads.
Subsequent, Lunar Voyage 2 will deploy to Reiner Gamma aboard Intuitive Machines’ IM-3 mission, carrying a vector magnetometer from Johns Hopkins APL and a multispectral microscope to review the area’s mysterious magnetic anomalies. “Having the mobility supplied by the MAPP is vital to undertaking the science targets of the Lunar Vertex investigation,” emphasizes David Blewett, principal investigator at Johns Hopkins APL.
Lunar Voyage 3 is scheduled for 2027 with SpaceX as launch supplier and Intuitive Machines offering touchdown providers for scientific and industrial payloads.
Illustration exhibiting MAPP on the Moon throughout the Lunar Voyage 3 mission. (Credit score: Lunar Outpost)
The Australian Roo-ver mission represents a $42 million Australian Area Company contract awarded in December 2024 to the ELO2 Consortium, which Lunar Outpost Oceania is a part of. The consortium goals to launch Australia’s first lunar rover in 2026 or 2027.
The MARS-1 contract, introduced in October 2025, will consider the corporate’s Cell Autonomous Robotic Swarms software program for U.S. Air Drive and Area Drive protection functions.
Past the MAPP collection, Lunar Outpost leads the Lunar Daybreak group growing the Eagle Lunar Terrain Car for NASA’s $4.6 billion Lunar Terrain Car Providers program. The group underwent restructuring in September 2024 when Lockheed Martin departed; Leidos subsequently joined the group, bringing human elements experience, whereas Lockheed’s earlier roles have been redistributed among the many partnership.
Eagle is being developed with a 20 km operational vary, a most velocity of 15 km/h, and lunar evening survival functionality. NASA is anticipated to pick out not less than one contractor for the ultimate part, with the primary supply round 2030.
In November 2024, Lunar Outpost introduced a partnership with SpaceX to ship Eagle to the Moon aboard Starship. “Lunar Outpost’s LTV is designed to be the spine of lunar floor operations,” stated Justin Cyrus, Lunar Outpost’s Founder and CEO. The corporate secured Collection A funding co-led by Sort One Ventures and Industrious Ventures to make sure this system strikes ahead no matter NASA’s contract choice.
The corporate has been conducting intensive area testing at a 1,000-acre facility in Colorado, finishing seven iterations of astronaut-pressurized-suit testing on the web site and at NASA’s Johnson Area Middle.
Lunar Outpost partnered with LEGO to create the Technic Lunar Outpost Moon Rover Area Car set, launched in 2025—the primary LEGO product designed with a industrial area firm. “You may’t construct lunar rovers as we do with out being inventive, imaginative, and enjoyable,” stated Cyrus. The set features a bonus mini-build of the particular MAPP rover that reached the Moon in March 2025.
Mud mitigation stays a big problem for touchdown on the floor of any overseas planet or moon, as lunar regolith particles are extremely abrasive, electrostatically charged, and susceptible to adhering to surfaces. The Artemis IV DUSTER investigation will present vital knowledge to tell the event of dust-resistant bearing designs, electrostatic repulsion programs, and self-cleaning mechanisms.
BREAKING: @NASA has chosen two science devices, designed for #Artemis IV astronauts to arrange on the lunar floor, that may advance area exploration. ⬇️
— NASA Science (@NASAScience_) December 4, 2025
Prolonged lunar evening operations require superior battery chemistry with low-temperature efficiency, extra environment friendly insulation programs, and strategic hibernation protocols for the 14-day evening cycle with temperatures beneath -170°C.
Communications infrastructure growth continues, with MAPP rovers designed to interface by direct-to-Earth S-band and X-band, Nokia’s LTE/4G lunar community (demonstrated throughout Lunar Voyage 1), and mesh networking between a number of rover models.
The MAPP collection technical structure helps Lunar Outpost’s “mobility as a service” enterprise mannequin, enabling useful resource prospecting, web site preparation, communication community deployment, and ISRU assist operations.
Illustration depicting the Eagle Area Truck on the lunar floor. (Credit score: Lunar Outpost)
With flight heritage from Lunar Voyage 1, upcoming missions to Reiner Gamma and the South Pole, the Australian Roo-ver Mission, a deliberate uncrewed demonstration within the late 2020s forward of integration with the crewed Artemis program (concentrating on Artemis V and past), and Eagle LTV growth progressing towards 2029 Starship supply, Lunar Outpost’s graduated rover structure is transitioning from promising expertise to operational infrastructure.
The Artemis IV for MAPP/DUSTER (robotic science assist) choice validates the corporate’s technical strategy and demonstrates NASA’s confidence in industrial mobility suppliers supporting crewed operations. As NASA prepares to announce the ultimate LTV contract choice, Lunar Outpost stands positioned to offer the transportation infrastructure for humanity’s sustained return to the moon—from 10-kilogram prospecting rovers to human-rated terrain automobiles.
(Lead picture: Artist’s impression of Lunar Outpost’s MAPP Rover. Credit score: Lunar Outpost)
