Maria Varmazas (3:22)

Do such amazing work. So I want to hear it.

Forest Mayan (3:25)

Yeah. So the long term vision and why we're called Lunar Outpost is we want to use the resources of the moon for the betterment of all humankind. And we really see the moon as this stepping stone for humanity. Right? It's. It's like a blessing that it's just magically there, something to help us take our first step off into the cosmos. You could really imagine that space exploration and expanding beyond Earth would be a lot harder without something like the Moon as, as a training ground. And also it's much more than that. Like I see the Moon as Earth's eight continent. Really the population and utilization of it, discovery of it. I mean, obviously it was not hard to discover. All humanity has always seen it and had a relationship with it. So it's a little different than the new continents early on, discovering the new world. But the utility of it is exceptional for people on Earth and for exploring beyond. So we want to use the Moon for resources to move like heavy industry and mining off world, capture those rare Earth elements that are needed for electrification, perhaps some of those solar implanted volatiles that can unlock nuclear fusion type energy sources. There's water resources that can be used for helping sustain people on the Moon, as well as providing propellant to reach out further towards Mars. And there's also a lot of science to be done, commercial activity and tourism. So we're kind of all of the above as far as business cases that support our expansion on the Moon. But our niche focus, what we're really focused on is lunar surface mobility. Because lunar surface mobility is going to enable all of these activities on the surface of the Moon and enable the infrastructure that's going to make this new economy happen.

Maria Varmazas (5:24)

Yeah, and you all at Space Symposium had a very, very popular booth because we got to see the incredible things that you all are building. It's so nice when there's like a physical thing that we can all ooh and ah over. And can you tell me the latest of what you've been working on? Cause it's been a few months since I spoke to AJ so I'm sure some stuff's been going on. So can you fill me in?

Forest Mayan (5:43)

Yeah. So at Space Symposium, you saw the unveiling of our Eagle space truck. So this is, you know, for people that are listening. It's a very futuristic, silver looking lunar vehicle that has seating for two astronauts. It's an open cabin because they're in spacesuits and they're on space, so they don't need windshields and windscreens. And then the back has a high utility truck bed with a robotic arm to load and unload things. And this vehicle is part of NASA's Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services program where they've solicited three vendors to design the NEX lunar vehicle. For the Artemis astronauts. Our team is one of those selected vendors. And since then we have continued to develop these vehicles. We have done multiple demonstrations of full autonomous navigation and driving of these vehicles. We've also completed some real critical milestone reviews for NASA, proving out the analysis of our design and that it's something that's, you know, feasible to hit the build button on, start manufacturing it and getting it ready for those astronauts.

Maria Varmazas (6:57)

So for, for those of us who.

N2K Networks Host (6:59)

Have like a very, very old concept.

Maria Varmazas (7:00)

Of like Yolde Moon Buggy, this is not that obviously you guys are doing something much, much cooler, much newer. Can you, can you like, what is your pitch to people, especially folks who are not necessarily space sappy, how, how different it is what you are building?

Forest Mayan (7:16)

Yeah, it's a huge difference. I mean the original moon buggy, the LRV was on the order of, you know, 450, 480 pounds. So it was light, it folded up into an origami piece that was stored in the, the limb, the lunar lander. And it was basically, each drive for it lasted about three hours, three and a half hours. And then they threw it away and they left it on the surface of the moon and came home. So each time they brought a new one. It was pretty primarily used for just the transportation of the astronauts. There were some instruments on board. The LTV is, it's not even in the same ballpark of capability like the LTV. The services program is designed for 10 year life. We're accomplishing that with multiple vehicles. But each vehicle can conceivably, you know, with a high probability even last 10 years in itself. These are vehicles that are designed to survive the lunar night. They're designed to haul well over 1600kg. We can do well over that. But that's, that's the NASA requirement. They're, you know, they're, they're fully functioning vehicles, not just from that aspect, but they've got the robotic arms, they can move payload, they can do infrastructure. And there's a lot of things that NASA hasn't even requested us to do that we can do with these vehicles. So there's a commercial business case here where we're going to use these vehicles to deploy infrastructure on the surface. We're going to use them to execute science missions for NASA or other sorts of international space agencies that want to do science. And so yeah, it's a completely different vehicle. And it's really exciting because it's gonna change everything we know about the moon once we get it up there.

Maria Varmazas (9:13)

Yeah, I was gonna say thinking about the one day human, permanent human presence on the moon to be able to do, you know, build infrastructure with a vehicle like that and take serious payloads along with us. I mean, that would completely transform what we're capable of doing and even open up the kinds of missions that I think people maybe never would have dreamed would even be possible.

Forest Mayan (9:36)

Yeah, I mean there's, I mean we haven't even started to scratch the surface of, of the types of missions, but there's, yeah, you know, there's prospecting missions where we're looking for those lunar resources. There's a lot of different science missions looking at the space environment, the lunar environment, a lot's unknown, especially in permanently shadowed regions, which are these areas that never see sunlight. We don't know like what the quality and quantity of the water is there. We don't know very much about kind of the temperatures and radiation environments there. So on the science side, we're going to be able to do quite a lot and then we can deploy much larger instruments. Think about a unique feature of the moon. Is it permanently. It kind of shields. The far side of the moon is kind of shielded from all the radiation and telescopes and radio frequencies from Earth. Well, you could use this vehicle to deploy a massive radio, radio telescope in that quiet zone on the far side of the moon. You can use it to build habitats, landing pads. So yeah, lots, lots of cool applications for it. NASA primarily wants to do science and then also get the astronauts where they need to be.

Maria Varmazas (10:51)

Yeah, and then you mentioned also potential commercial applications. So again, a lot of people's gears, I'm sure, are turning at the, at the possibilities that you all are opening up here. So that's, my goodness, it's a very exciting time. It's really cool you all are building. You've got to be pretty jazzed about.

Forest Mayan (11:07)

It because I'm excited. Part of what we've done at Lunar Outpost is we've utilized this flywheel effect that NASA's put in place with things like just commercialization of lunar exploration. So they set up the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. This is a program for landers that can send like 50 to 150 kilograms of payload to the surface of the moon. NASA's only buying part of the capacity. So they've opened it up for commercial, you know, businesses to participate. And this spring we actually sent the first fully commercial lunar rover to the moon on one of these clips landers. So NASA created kind of the, you know, the funding and the path for commercial Opportunity, that transportation system that commercial companies bid on. And then that enabled companies like us to send a rover with commercial partners. And so this was a small 10 kilogram class rover. We sent it to the moon earlier this spring, so late February and March. And this was something that wouldn't have happened without that synergy between private and public partnership. Like, NASA didn't pay us to build this rover. We built the MAP rover with a whole bunch of partners, which I can talk about more later, but I don't want to go into too much of a monologue. But that's just like the first step. And then for ltv, it's imagine what you can do. We did a lot of stuff with a 10 kilogram class Rover. With LTV, we're carrying, you know, thousands of kilograms, tons of material. You know, the sky's the limit.

N2K Networks Host (13:05)

We'll be right back.

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Maria Varmazas (14:13)

Yeah, if you don't mind telling me.

N2K Networks Host (14:15)

More about the map roomer, I would.

Maria Varmazas (14:16)

Love to hear more, more about it because honestly, I mean it. The fact that y' all got there and you were there, I mean, that and what you built and how you built it. I'm kind of hanging on every word here because I. I mean, you all are living a lot of people's dreams, ambitions. So it's kind of like, yeah, I'd love to hear more about this.

Forest Mayan (14:34)

Yeah. Yeah, okay, sure. So the MAP Rover stands for mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform. So the goal is it's a small rover that can look for space resources on the moon and could utilize the space on these early eclipse landers. But we didn't bid for a Proposal for NASA to get awarded this. We didn't wait for a long process and we just went out and said, we're building a rover. We know there's a market there, we know there's a desire for this. Eventually we found a partner that needed a mobility solution for the moon. That partner was Nokia. Nokia wanted to demonstrate a 4G LTE network on the surface of the moon. And we said, hey, we can provide you a mobility solution. Intuitive machines provided a landing solution and they put a radio on the lander and then the goal was to put a radio on the rover and drive away from the lander and do kind of a. Can you hear me now? Maybe that's the wrong company, but you know, a sort of signal strength test for Nokia on the surface to really demonstrate this communications. And through the process, we partnered with lots of different companies. We partnered with MIT on some science instruments, NASA Ames on some science instruments. We partnered with Juventus Adidas, like the Juventus soccer club and have a map rover line of jerseys. We had some prospecting sisters on there. Yeah, we had a whole soccer game where everyone was wearing jerseys with our lunar rover on it. You know, this is, this is one of the premier teams in Italy.

Maria Varmazas (16:17)

I was going to say. That's not a small name.

Forest Mayan (16:18)

That's.

Maria Varmazas (16:19)

That's. Wow.

Forest Mayan (16:20)

Yeah, yeah. So there's, you know, go online, I think you can still buy the merch. But yeah, it was, it was just very cool. It brought, it brought space closer to home and closer to a new audience. And that's another exciting thing about commercialization is right now people, you know, their interests are very channelized on the Internet. If you have an interest in a certain thing, you know, LinkedIn or Instagram or Facebook will find what that thing is and focus you on that. You don't see things outside that often. And I think that happens a lot with space. Space people know a lot about space. Not space people don't. But by doing partners with Juventus and we have another partnership with Lego, other people are kind of seeing what can be done in space and it's bringing them closer to home and kind of breaking that algorithm wall that exists for so many people.

Maria Varmazas (17:11)

Yeah, also Lego, oh my God.

Forest Mayan (17:15)

We got a LEGO set coming out in August. But yeah, check out Lunar Outpost Rover. It's on the LEGO website. So I can talk about it now.

Maria Varmazas (17:28)

That's so cool. I'm adding that to my list.

N2K Networks Host (17:30)

Boop.

Maria Varmazas (17:33)

I love what you're talking about, about the public private partnership and opening up these silos. Also. I think that is so noteworthy. And I just wanted to call that out because that is the goal for, I think a lot of people in our silo is to try and figure out that path. I would love to know what that was like for you, for you all to kind of to figure out those partnerships because, like, that's, that's very difficult to do. But also, I mean, you did it. So, like, what, what did you learn from that? What were those takeaways? That's fascinating.

Forest Mayan (18:05)

Yeah, I mean, it's an important thing to establish credibility early on because when you, when you talk to these, you know, different partners, non traditional companies, a lot of them are just not even briefed on what's going on in space. Many of them don't know that NASA is going back to the moon with the Artemis program. So when you are a small company, you're like, yeah, we're sending rover to the moon. Let's do something cool. You really have to have that credibility at the table to show them, yes, this is a real thing. Here's rover lander contracts. And by having the systems built and tested and then being able to update those systems to integrate new payloads really helped us with that. And then it's, you know, it's, it's talking to a lot of people, a lot of outreach, you know, working, working your connections and, and just being, you know, just being a great person to work with. I think people can, people can read you pretty quickly, you know, when you're, when you bring something like this and to the table. And so there, there are people that, that just, you know, maybe won't get it or see the, the point of space. And there's other people that, you know, you just, you're kind of giving your pitch and then you see something click and they realize, yes, you know, sending this stuff to the moon, it's going to be amazing. Everyone has a connection with the moon. Whether you're a space person or not, everyone's seen the moon. And once you send stuff up there, like a rover, your brand, your technology, your product, it's there forever. So you know, this. All of our payloads, the map rover. On the mission we, we operated in space, we transported on the lander. Unfortunately, the lander didn't land upright on the moon, landed on top of us, but we still communicated and operated the rover there. So many of our payload partners achieved a lot of their objectives and they created this, you know, this moment where their stuff is there on the moon. You know, they did something amazing. And all of our partners have said that they want to do it again, so they like the experience and, and we're just going to go for even more exciting missions and we have a lot of them coming up. And so LTV is three or four missions down the road, but we're building that base in that community right now.

Maria Varmazas (20:22)

Thank you for that insight. I just find that really fascinating. So yeah, you mentioned LTV is a few missions ahead, but you've got some stuff that's closer timeline wise. So tell me a bit about it. One of them is Lunar Voyage, is that correct?

Forest Mayan (20:34)

Yeah. So Lunar Voyage is what we call like any of our missions. Right. So a lot of people just say in space they just say M1, M2, M2, M3, M4. Right. Like mission one, mission two, mission three. Not that creative. Right. So we call them lunar voyages or LV1 because it's, you know, it's a voyage we want to take you on the extreme kind of romantic.

N2K Networks Host (20:55)

I like it, I like it.

Forest Mayan (20:56)

Yeah, some flare Lunar Voyage. We thought about like naming, you know, vehicles on different south pole exploration vessels, but most of those things end up sinking at some point and we're like, yeah, we won't go that far with the naming scheme, but for the missions, yeah, we call them Lunar Voyages. So Lunar Voyage 2 is our second mission to the moon that's upcoming and it's less than a year out. This one is cool because our first mission was unique. First commercial rover mission in history, first US teleoperated rover on the moon. This next mission is actually funded by NASA. So now, now we're, you know, this was our first one public private thing funded by the big games. Yeah, yeah. NASA is like, hey, you know, they, they could do it right? You know, they, they built a rover. We established that credibility and, and we partnered with John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab to create this, this vehicle for this mission called Lunar Vertex. This is a really cool mission because it's a science mission and it's unlocking a mystery that has, has dumbfounded scientists for well over a hundred years. So on the moon through a telescope you can see that there's these little swirls on the mid latitude. This part of the moon was named Reiner Gamma. Later, with instrumentation orbiting the moon, it was detected that there are magnetic anomalies near this part of the moon. And so there's a magnetic anomaly and there's also a visual anomaly of these swirls on the moon. And so what this rover is going to do is it has a magnetometer on the top of it. That's going to detect the magnetic field. And then below the rover, there's a kind of like a microscope that's going to look at the surface. And so simultaneously, we'll take measurements of the magnetic field, and then we'll also see that visual transition of the material to try to understand what is kind of causing that anomaly. And the hope is that. What the heck is this? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, you know, the hope is it can help us figure out, like, why it's there. Why is the Moon there? But, you know, maybe that's where, you know, the Autobots are, you know, hidden on the moon or who knows, you know, alien societies. Probably not. Probably not.

Maria Varmazas (23:13)

Probably not. Maybe not. Transformers. But who knows? I mean, who knows?

Forest Mayan (23:17)

Yeah, but, but, but it'll give us unique insights on the formation of the moon, our place in the solar system. And I'm always interested of how those things relate to different resources on the Moon because that's a big passion of mine, and the big goal of the company is to find and utilize those.

Maria Varmazas (23:38)

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if, whatever we learn from this, that's a very cool mission, by the way. I'm obsessed with the hexagon on Saturn, so it's always interesting for me to hear, like, what random things going up to the ISS kind of relate to research about that. And I wouldn't be surprised if there's some relation. Who knows? It's just so cool how we find these random things. And I didn't know about these on the moon, so that's kind of neat. I learned something new today, so thank you for that. That's really neat. Yeah. So that is your upcoming mission within about a year. So are there other things that you want to share about what's coming up next?

Forest Mayan (24:13)

Yeah, we've got a ton of missions. Some of those are unannounced. So this, you know, unfortunately, I can't break the. Break the news here, I understand, but there are some that are announced. So what is dubbed Lunar Voyage 3 is another commercial mission. So this one has some commercial payloads and then some science payloads from scientific agencies. So that one's in. Works. It's a little bit under wraps as we focus on Lunar Voyage 2. But that one's moving along really well and is very, very far along. Then the next one is the launch.

Maria Varmazas (24:53)

Provider for Lunar Voyage 2. Is that intuitive Machines as well, or is that a different launch provider? Sorry, not launch provider. Yeah, sorry.

Forest Mayan (24:59)

Yeah, Lander. Yep, yep, Lander.

Maria Varmazas (25:01)

Sorry, I got my terminology. Yes. Intune Machines.

Forest Mayan (25:03)

Cool.

N2K Networks Host (25:04)

Yep.

Forest Mayan (25:04)

Yeah. And Then Lunar Voyage 4 is, you know, it's an internal name for this mission because the, the name for this mission is Lunar Trailblazer. And so this is Australia's flagship mission. So, so we do call it Lunar Trailblazer and that is a rover that is going to go to surface of the moon, do also some more exploration. But this rover is built out of our Australian office in Melbourne, Australia, and it's has a lot of collaborators from all across Australia. So we're engaging both the Australian industry in academia for this and that's, that's a very cool international opportunity to really, you know, work with Australia in creating new science and exploration for their, you know, relatively recently founded, you know, space agency. And at the same time we're, we're, you know, utilizing a lot of capabilities of Australia because there is so much talent in Australia that is just yearning to be part of space and this mission is enabling that to happen. And there's a lot of kind of like learning and development going on there, so we're really excited. Spinning that office up was very, very quick because there's excellent engineers there and they all want to do space stuff and this is a way to give people the opportunity to do that in Australia without having to, you know, leave the country to, you know, go to America or Europe to participate in space activities there. Yeah, I've been cool.

Maria Varmazas (26:48)

Mission very.

Forest Mayan (26:49)

Yeah.

Maria Varmazas (26:50)

I have been so impressed by what's been going on in Australia, space wise, in the past few years and how quickly, as you, as you mentioned, how quickly it's been spinning up because there.

N2K Networks Host (26:59)

Is so much talent there.

Maria Varmazas (27:00)

So definitely. Is this the rover mission, by the way? Is that the one with the amazing name? Yep, yep.

Forest Mayan (27:06)

It's the Rouver. That's the name of it. So you never know. Yeah, when you put those things out for public vote. Right. You never know what the name's going to come back. It's always a little bit risky from the organizer's perspective. But Rover came out. Yeah, perfect. That's an amazing name.

Maria Varmazas (27:24)

Cannot top that name. I think when that news broke, I remember thinking that you cannot get any better than that name. It's just so absolutely perfect. That's so great. That has to be just so much so, so fulfilling to work on all of these things. Is there anything else that you wanted to make sure that you mentioned to the audience before we wrap up? This is the free space part I told you about where it's like, whatever.

Forest Mayan (27:46)

You like, free space, I'll take it.

Maria Varmazas (27:48)

It's free space.

Forest Mayan (27:50)

Yeah. So yeah, for everyone listening, Please check out www.lunaroutpost.com. we are hiring a lot. We've got offices in Melbourne, Australia, Luxembourg and Denver, Colorado or Golden Denver area. And we are, we're expanding pretty rapidly. We are growing lots of programs and kind of expanding even beyond the current space that we're in. And so if you want to just work hard, work fast, make a difference, do things that are unique and kind of make people scratch their head of how do they do that, this is the place for you. So check out our careers page. And Maria, thank you very much for inviting me on your podcast. I really appreciated talking with you, so I hope we get some time to talk more. But I think you got a really interesting show and look forward to listening to it.

N2K Networks Host (28:58)

That's T minus Deep Space brought to you by N2K CyberWire we'd love to know what you think of our podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like the show, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in our show notes or send an email to space2k.com we are proud that N2K Cyberwire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector. From the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies, N2K helps space and cybersecurity professionals grow, learn and stay informed. As the nexus for discovery and connection, we bring you the people, technology and IT ideas shaping the future of secure innovation. Learn how@n2k.com N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Ibin. Peter Kilpe is our publisher and I'm your host, Maria Varmazas.

Maria Varmazas (30:12)

Thanks for listening.

N2K Networks Host (30:13)

We'll see you next time.

Maria Varmazas (30:14)

Sa.

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Forest Mayan (31:03)

Cut the camera.

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