Hi Open Lunarians,

 

July was a month of celebration and change at Open Lunar. On 20 July we celebrated Moon Day, marking the anniversary of humanity's first steps on the lunar surface. Below you'll find some of our favourite photos from our community at the end of this newsletter.
 

It was also a big month for the team. We welcomed Nhat Nguyen as our new Project and Partnership Lead for the Lunar Ledger—you can read his introduction below. And, we're saying farewell to Mehak Sarang, our Director of Industry Integration. Mehak has been instrumental in connecting our work with the commercial lunar community, and we wish her every success in her next chapter.
 

Elsewhere, the Lunar Ledger hit a major milestone with the release of its first hosted mission dataset, our 2026 Fellows are wrapping up their research on Designated Lunar Areas, and we're preparing for a busy September in Geneva. Read on for the full update!

 

 

We're delighted to welcome Nhat Nguyen to the team. Nhat joins us from Space Machines Company, where as Mission Manager he directed the flagship Australia–India MAITRI mission, and brings a wealth of experience across space partnerships, mission management, and product leadership. Read Nhat's welcome note—including his long-term vision for moving heavy industry off Earth—on the Open Lunar blog.

 

 

A recent Falcon 9 upper-stage impact on the Moon revealed a deeper governance challenge: without a shared public record of lunar activities, operators can’t reliably anticipate contamination risks or coordinate around sensitive sites. In this blog post, Open Lunar Senior Policy Lead Samuel Jardine explores why transparency infrastructure is becoming essential for a peaceful and sustainable lunar future.

 

 

On July 1, we marked a milestone in the Lunar Ledger's development roadmap: the release of its first hosted mission dataset. The data comes from the YAOKI rover, built by Dymon and operated by JAOPS, which flew on Intuitive Machines' IM-2 mission.

 

The webinar brought together the people who made the data and the people who will use it. Louis Burtz of JAOPS walked through the YAOKI mission, the dataset, and the lessons learned operating on the lunar surface. Athena Coustenis, Chair of the COSPAR Panel on Planetary Protection, led a discussion on what open data sharing means for lunar science and what the community needs to do to take full advantage of a private mission releasing its data openly. Zack Gainsforth of our data science team closed with a walkthrough of how to access and use the dataset through the AWS Open Data program.

 

The conversation kept returning to a practical point: data only accelerates science when it can be found, trusted, and combined with other datasets. Calibration metadata, interoperability standards, and clear licensing are what separate a dataset that gets used from one that gets ignored. That is the gap the Ledger exists to close, and the YAOKI release is the first step toward filling it.

 

The session was recorded. You can watch it here.

 

Our 2026 Fellows are wrapping up their research. Since joining in January, Vic Paulson and Aaron Mackey have been working on the Designated Lunar Areas project, developing practical frameworks for coordinating lunar surface operations before conflicts arise. Watch the public webinars below to hear about their research, outcomes, and next steps!

On 7 September, Open Lunar will partner with the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and the Global University Alliance for Outer Space Law and Policy Education to host a Geneva Security Debate on Lunar Security and Strategic Competition. This hybrid panel discussion will examine how growing activity on and around the Moon is reshaping geopolitics, security and international governance. Panellists include Open Lunar’s Senior Policy Lead Sam Jardine, alongside Professor Namrata Goswami of Johns Hopkins University, Dr Therese Jones of the European Space Policy Institute, and Professor Guoyu Wang of the Beijing Institute of Technology and GUAOSPLE. Registration is now open.

 

That same afternoon, Open Lunar will also run a tabletop exercise on lunar security and coordination, in partnership with the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. The web page for that event will go live shortly, but for more information or any questions, please reach out to Sam at samueljardine@openlunar.org. 

Here are few of our favourite photos from this year's Moon Day celebrations on 20 July, marking the anniversary of humanity's first steps on the Moon. We are grateful all who shared their photos from around the world—Chile, Sweden, India, New Zealand, Vietnam, the United States, and beyond.

This week we say goodbye to Mehak Sarang, our Director of Industry Integration. Mehak has brought deep industry expertise to Open Lunar—from lunar lander payload integration to research on lunar governance—and has been a tireless champion of coordination across the commercial lunar community, most recently representing us at ASCEND 2026. Thank you for everything, Mehak. We wish you all the best in your next chapter!

 

You can read Mehak's reflections on her time at Open Lunar on our blog.

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