First Rover at the Lunar South Pole
- justin54534
- Jul 26
- 2 min read
May 2021, Lunar Outpost announces our first Lunar Rover is headed to the lunar South Pole in 2025. The Lunar Outpost line of rovers provides humanity access to other planetary bodies, including the Moon and Mars. This first mission is fully commercial, funded by Lunar Outpost and through commercial partnerships with Intuitive Machines, Nokia, MIT, NASA, LSA and others.
This mission is enabled by groundbreaking technological advancements which have driven down the cost of multiplanetary rovers by orders of magnitude. These cost efficiencies empower commercial partners to self-fund their initiatives and leverage Public-Private Partnerships to secure payload space aboard the Lunar Outpost MAPP rover.
Mission Overview
Headed to the Lunar South Pole in 2025
First Rover to the Lunar South Pole
First Commercial Rover on Another Planetary Body
First Sale of Space Resources in Human History
Rover Class: Exploration Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP) – 20 kg
Launch Vehicle: SpaceX Falcon 9
Lander: Intuitive Machines Nova-C
Why This Matters
Lunar Outpost will have the first commercial rover on the Moon in human history and the first rover ever at the lunar South Pole. This provides an opportunity for us to explore where no one has ever gone before while collecting critical data that will enable NASA Artemis and ESA Astronauts to explore the Moon this decade.
The South Pole of the Moon is one of the most strategically valuable locations in our Solar System. Rich with resources and home to Peaks of Eternal Light, this location is seen as an ideal spot for Astronauts to explore and one day inhabit.
Bottom Line: Lunar Outpost will design, build, test, and launch a rover to the Moon in record time and at a fraction of the cost achievable by any other provider. The Lunar Outpost Rover lineup provides game-changing technology that enables the future of the space economy.
The Next Steps
The Lunar Outpost MAPP rover will launch in February 2025. Upon Mission completion, Lunar Outpost will be the only commercial company worldwide to ever have driven on another planetary body. Lunar Outpost will work with its commercial and scientific partners to maximize our learnings from the mission and pave the way for large scale operations on other planetary bodies.
Key data collected will include mobility, thermal, radiation, geologic, prospecting, visual, mapping, and communications performance data.
