MIT Will Return To The Moon For The First Time Since Apollo, Thanks To This Space Startup

Space exploration company Lunar Outpost will be working with the university to aid NASA as it heads to the Lunar South Pole, the proposed landing site for the crewed Artemis III mission scheduled for 2025.


In August of 1961, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was awarded the first contract of the Apollo mission, and by 1969 the school’s Instrumentation Lab built the control systems, navigation and onboard guidance for the Apollo command and lunar modules. A team of MIT researchers developed the Apollo Guidance Computer that not only calibrated the exact course to the Moon, but also communicated with 150 other devices onboard, controlling physical elements of the spacecraft. This compact computer was ahead of its time as it weighed only 70 pounds compared to its mammoth predecessors that took over entire rooms.

It’s been half a century since MIT had technology on the Moon’s surface, but that’s about to change. The university will be hitching a ride with space technology company Lunar Outpost during its summer 2023 mission near the Lunar South Pole. The Colorado-based company plans to collect and sell moon rocks to NASA as a part of their Artemis mission under a contract worth a whopping… $1. (More on this later)

The mission, scheduled to take off from Cape Caperval, will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It will only take a day to complete. Well, a lunar day, which is closer to two weeks for those of us on Earth. To speed up its research process, cut costs of public funding and avoid long proposal timelines that come with government funding, MIT made its arrangements directly with Lunar Outpost rather than working through NASA. Neither MIT nor Lunar Outpost disclosed the financial terms of the deal. .

The main reason Lunar Outpost is venturing to the Moon is to retrieve lunar materials. The $1 contract might seem trivial, but Justin Cyrus, cofounder of Lunar Outpost, explained that it was to get the company (valued at $42 million, according to Pitchbook) a seat at the table, but Lunar Outpost felt the monetary value wasn’t as important as being a part of a groundbreaking mission.

“The amount was more symbolic than what we determined that it’s worth,” Cyrus says. “What Lunar Outpost did is we bid $1 mostly to be at the table and help establish that precedent.”

MIT will have two payloads aboard Lunar Outpost’s Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform rover. About the size of a thumb, the RESOURCE Camera will generate 3-D images of different lunar points of interest. The second payload is the AstroAnt, a miniature rover the size of a matchbox that will drive atop the MAPP rover and take contactless measurements of the rover’s radiator.

According to Ariel Ekblaw, the director of MIT’s Space Exploration Initiative, each payload went through a rigorous training process over the course of almost two years. Supported by NASA, as part of its development process, AstraAnt participated in four parabolic flights on a plane known as the “Vomit Comet,” that simulates zero-G by flying up and down in the sky.

The RESOURCE Camera will play a direct role in the Artemis mission. No human or rover has been to the Lunar South Pole before, so the images it collects will be used in foundational training courses for NASA astronauts. Although NASA won’t send a crewed mission to the Moon until the Artemis III mission (currently slated for 2025) MAPP and the MIT payloads will be surveying the Moon’s Shackleton connecting ridge which is close to the proposed landing site for the mission.

What makes this region so interesting? The area has permanently shadowed zones and peaks of near-eternal light, meaning they receive sunlight nearly all the time. These conditions have given scientists reason to believe that concentrations of usable water ice to potentially support life are present.

Scientists don’t really have good information about this area, says Ekblaw. “This is a really prime opportunity to get this dataset on the mission with Lunar Outpost and turn it into a virtual reality or augmented reality trainer for future astronauts.”

Once this area is investigated and understood more in-depth, scientists and researchers will be able to potentially prepare for future human settlement of the Moon. And now that the school is returning back to the lunar surface after more than half a century, Ekblaw wants in and believes that MIT will remain a prominent figure in Moon exploration and human habitation.

“The MIT Space Exploration Initiative is really proud to be bringing MIT back to the surface of the Moon,” she said. “We’d like to say this time to stay, in that we’re trying to build up payload infrastructure that is going to contribute to a sustainable lunar settlement.”

You may also like...