DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is committed to the rapid development of technologies to support the foundation of an integrated lunar infrastructure. The 10-Year Lunar Architecture Talent Study (LunA-10) will seek to bring together what the agency sees as isolated efforts by the scientific community to create a diverse technology framework to support space activities on and around the lunar surface in the coming years. . DARPA’s work is scheduled to take seven months, and the month will include service providers and users, according to a statement published on the agency’s website on August 15.

“The next 10 years will witness a major paradigm shift in the lunar economy,” said Michael Nayak, program manager for DARPA’s Strategic Technologies Division. To accelerate this change, LunA-10 will identify companies with “technically clear business plans” and facilitate co-innovation between them to create a variety of commercially viable services on the Moon by 2035.

In a statement, DARPA said the program aligns with NASA’s efforts to establish a permanent human presence on the moon as a test site for future missions to Mars. NASA’s current Artemis program includes a lunar orbiting space station, an outpost at the Moon’s south pole, and possible plans for expeditions to the Moon’s surface.

This amount of research, combined with the expected growth of commercial moon businesses, will require a solid and reliable infrastructure to support this, and DARPA hopes to address this with the LunA-10.

Power transmission and data transmission will be key research areas and the combination of these technologies will be a priority. One way to achieve this is with sophisticated lasers that can wirelessly emit electricity while carrying the data stream.

“LunA-10 aims to facilitate the integration and co-optimization of as many infrastructure sectors as possible into key nodes that can scale in the future,” DARPA said in a statement. said. “Imagine a wireless power plant that can also provide self-beam communication and navigation,” Nayak said. “LunA-10 is looking for these ports to support the booming commercial economy on the Moon.”

DARPA is giving companies interested in the competition until September 6 to submit their LunA-10 summaries. Later next month, selected companies will complete a technical presentation and be eligible for up to $1 million in funding.

Companies that have been finalized for the LunA-10 study will be announced at the Moon Surface Innovation Consortium’s (LSIC) autumn meeting in October, and are expected to inform the scientific community about their progress at the consortium’s April 2024 meeting. Final reports are planned. See you next June.