Ex-NASA official plans to build a robotic outpost near the Moon; test mission set for 2024

In a bid to increase the chances of human presence on the Moon, a Maryland-based start-up has planned to develop the first commercial lunar robotic outpost. Founded in 2021 by former NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk and two others, the start-up named Quantum Space aims to offer help on multiple fronts such as providing internet, data collection, refuelling spacecraft, and assembling structures, The Verge reported. In its official release, the company stated that the outpost would, "serve multiple users with deploying satellites, hosting payloads and acquisition of data and logistics services via customizable missions from locations in lunar and Earth orbits." The company is targeting the first Lagrange point (L1) for establishing the outpost, which is over 61,300 kilometres from the Moon.

'There's going to be a lot of activity around the Moon,' says Jurczyk 

President and CEO of the company, Steve Jurczyk, in an interview with The Verge, said that "We know there’s going to be a lot of activity around and on the Moon in the coming decade, primarily driven by Artemis." Artemis is a series of NASA missions that would be conducted starting the second quarter of 2022 to take humans back to the Moon. On the other hand, Quantum Space is aiming to get involved in these missions as it envisions building multiple types of vehicles that could be used in future lunar missions. 

Meanwhile, Jurczyk said that his company, through the lunar robotic outpost would also look to help with communication in the cislunar space, the space between the Earth and the Moon. The company plans to do so by being a part of NASA's LunaNet, which is an internet-like system planned for reducing the reliance on technologies on Earth for navigation, communication, and data relays. "We believe we can be a node or nodes in that network, for both spacecraft in orbit as well as spacecraft on the surface," Jurczyk told The Verge. The company is reportedly planning to send a robot to L1 by spring of 2024 to test the technologies that would be used for purposes such as observations and communications. 

Kam Ghaffarian, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Quantum Space said in a company release, "We envision a future where innovation and sustainability meet propelling human progress, economic growth and expanding access to Space, and its vast ability to improve life on Earth."

Image: Twitter/@Quantum Space