After Nasa's surprise, private firms still aim for the moon

It was shaping up into another ordinary day at the Colorado headquarters of the small space startup Lunar Outpost late last month when its chief executive, Justin Cyrus, learned of a surprise press conference called by Jared Isaacman, the new administrator of Nasa.

- By Richard Luscombe

Cyrus's company epitomises the many private contractors of the space agency working on a myriad of projects crucial to the Artemis programme that seeks to return humans to the moon, so anything Isaacman had to say about it was naturally of interest to him.

What Cyrus didn't expect was the stunning announcement that Nasa was restructuring its entire strategy for the first human lunar landing in more than half a century, and was moving its astronauts to a later launch attempt on Artemis IV scheduled for 2028.

Beset by technical issues that put the Artemis programme billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule, as well as criticism that the agency was trying to do too much too soon, Nasa made a decision with significant consequences for its many commercial partners such as Lunar Outpost, and in the process created many more questions.

But in the best traditions of decades of human spaceflight, Cyrus saw opportunity in adversity. Barring further delays or rethinking by Nasa's senior managers, the company's Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (Mapp) rover, a small but technology-packed vehicle crucial to the agency's plans for future long-term habitation on the moon, will now journey alongside the Artemis IV astronauts.