Hi Open Lunarians,

 

May was a special month for those of us working towards the Moon. Open Lunar board, team, and wider community members convened back where Open Lunar began — in the Mission District of San Francisco, California. In 2018, when Open Lunar incorporated, a special group of innovators, engineers, and changemakers set up shop to build public utilities for the Moon. We still hold that same mission and vision today, and many of those founding community members are still contributing to it. A big thanks to all who participated, contributed, and made the journey out to San Francisco.

 

On May 26, NASA provided updates on the Moon Base plan, first introduced at the Ignition event earlier this year. The agency announced new contracts to leading lunar companies — including Astrolab and Lunar Outpost for the first lunar terrain vehicles, and Blue Origin to deliver them to the South Pole region. Open Lunar partner Astrolab will also fly its FLIP rover on an early cargo mission, and partner Firefly Aerospace was selected to build the spacecraft that will carry NASA's MoonFall drones to the Moon. MoonFall will send four drones to make short hops across the lunar surface, surveying potential landing sites for Artemis astronauts, with launch targeted for 2028.

 

Just two days later, those plans met a sharp reminder of how hard this work is. On May 28, Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket exploded during a static fire test at Cape Canaveral, destroying the vehicle and heavily damaging Launch Complex 36 — currently its only operational New Glenn pad. No one was injured, but with New Glenn to Blue Origin's Blue Moon lunar lander, the setback is a vivid illustration of how a single point of failure can ripple across the entire lunar timeline.

 

With this much activity emerging — and this much riding on a small number of vehicles and providers — it's more important than ever for commercial companies, governments, and scientists to coordinate around landing sites and shared areas, and to ensure that early activity does not lock out long-term access. Thank you for joining us in this effort!

 

 

The past few decades of lunar exploration relied on open data sharing from scientific missions. In this new era of exploration — with more lunar actors, and commercial companies looking to potentially collect proprietary datasets — enabling data sharing will be more important than ever. Learn how Open Lunar supports open source data sharing of lunar data through the Lunar Ledger platform.

 

 

On July 1, Open Lunar Foundation will host a webinar on the release of the first commercial lunar dataset on the Lunar Ledger. Joining us will be the team behind the YAOKI, Shinichiro Nakajima, Louis Burtz, and Alejandro Sela from Dymon and JAOPS, who will share insights from their mission and the data they are contributing to the Ledger. Athena Coustenis from COSPAR will moderate a discussion on what open data sharing means for the future of lunar science. Zack Gainsforth, the Lunar Ledger's data scientist, will close the session by walking attendees through how to access and work with the YAOKI dataset. 

Director of Industry Integration Mehak Sarang attended the ASCEND 2026 conference on a panel titled “Coordination When It May Seem Impossible” with Matthew Weinzierl (Harvard Business School, moderator), Pat Mathewson (Astroscale), and Ely Sandler (Harvard Kennedy School). She discussed Open Lunar’s flagship project, the Lunar Ledger, as a tool to build governance capacity to improve coordination in the absence of international law or regulatory frameworks.

Open Lunar’s Senior Policy Analyst, Samuel Jardine, was interviewed by Tangle News’ Aidan Gorman for their new documentary on the return to the Moon. The discussion explored the Moon's past, present, and future and delved into how renewed lunar activity is moving beyond science alone, raising increasingly complex questions around geopolitics, governance, commercial ambition, long-term infrastructure, and strategic competition. 

Open Lunar Board Chair Chris Hadfield testing crewed operations of Astrolab's LTV Rover. Source: Birmingham Times

On May 26, 2026, NASA announced plans for building a Moon Base, establishing the first sustained presence on the lunar surface at the south pole. The agency announced a three-phase approach, beginning with early exploration supported by robotic and crewed missions. During the press conference, Lunar Ledger partners Astrolab and Firefly were awarded key contracts to support Moon Base development. 

 

As part of the Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) program, Astrolab was awarded a contract for Astrolab’s Crewed Lunar Vehicle, or CLV‑1, a crewed rover designed to transport astronauts, carry supplies, and support remote operations.

 

Firefly Aerospace was selected to build the spacecraft that will transport the “Moonfall” drones designed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory to perform scouting and site selection for the Artemis astronauts.

 

We congratulate our partners and are proud to be working with the first lunar operators to advance frameworks for information-sharing and transparency as plans for surface operations solidify.

Read more about our MoU with Astrolab and Firefly on the Lunar Ledger blog.

 

This month, Open Lunar Board, Staff, and community members convened in San Francisco for our annual board retreat weekend. We hosted a daytime interactive workshop — including mapping the next decade of lunar activity, diving into the Lunar Ledger and timekeeping, and cohosted a workshop on lunar dust with our partners Honeybee Robotics. 

We also hosted a closed-door “State of the Moon” talk by board members Chris Hadfield, Tanja Masson-Zwaan, and Lindy Elkins-Tanton. Thank you to all who participated, joined, and ideated with us!

 

Open Lunar’s Executive Director, Rachel Williams, and Senior Policy Lead, Samuel Jardine, will be in Vienna from the 11th to the 18th June, attending the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space 69th Plenary. 

 

They’ll be representing Open Lunar, a permanent observer of COPUOS, engaging with member states and stakeholders and supporting the work of the Committee, particularly by contributing their perspectives to the Five Treaties Working Group’s consultations with permanent observers and other stakeholders on information sharing regarding space activities and the implementation of Article XI of the Outer Space Treaty. 

 

If you are in Vienna, make sure to come talk to us!

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