The new White House plan for cislunar S&T tasks DoD to lead development of new, and/or improvement of current, ground- and space-based sensors for monitoring the cislunar region.
Future military, civil and commercial cislunar operations will require precise lunar maps not just of topography, but also of the Moon's gravitational and magnetic fields.
Explore how networked warfare, AI, and 3D-printed drones are reshaping US Indo-Pacific strategy.
"The envisioned lunar railroad network could transport humans, supplies and resources for commercial ventures across the lunar surface," according to Northrop Grumman's announcement.
Technologies being explored include "lunar power; mining and commercial in-situ resource utilization; communications, navigation, and timing; transit, mobility, and logistics; and construction and robotics," according to DARPA.
"More than 100 lunar missions are planned for this decade alone, including many that are commercial," said Jessica West, of Canada's Project Ploughshares.
Brig. Gen. John Olson, who advises CSO Gen. Jay Raymond on space logistics issues, believes the US must rapidly act to take the "first mover advantage" for itself to block Chinese ambitions, which could include territorial claims in space.
As aircraft shrink, threats expand, and technology accelerates, aircraft engines must iterate along with the threats.
"I do not believe that our astronauts, upon returning to the Moon, will want to be welcomed by the Chinese and the Russians. Instead, we should be there to meet them whenever they arrive," Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas says.