The Emerging Architecture of Lunar Cooperation

Lunar exploration is becoming an increasingly international undertaking, with more governments and commercial operators pursuing missions beyond Earth orbit. But establishing a sustained presence on the Moon will require a different approach to infrastructure than the mission-specific systems that have traditionally supported exploration. Communications, navigation and other essential services are beginning to be developed for use across multiple missions, introducing new technical and commercial dependencies among organizations.

The transition is taking shape through public-private partnerships, international networking standards and efforts to connect independently developed systems. These arrangements could determine not only how future lunar missions operate, but also how countries and companies participate in the infrastructure supporting them.

Public-Private Partnerships Shape Lunar Development

The expansion of commercial activity in cislunar space is changing the relationship between governments and the companies developing space capabilities. National agencies remain the primary sources of funding for many lunar initiatives but increasingly rely on private industry to develop infrastructure and services intended to support future missions.

In a September paper published in the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) peer-reviewed academic journal Space and Defense, Naisha Chirag Naik of the University of Colorado Boulder Leeds School of Business, examined the economic and strategic factors influencing commercial participation in cislunar development. The paper, A Cislunar Economic Forecast under Public-Private Partnership, identified more than 80 companies investing in cislunar capabilities and examined how government programs were encouraging private-sector involvement.

“At first glance, the cislunar economy appears small, expensive, and uncommerciable; too reliant on government research and funding to develop a real commercial future. However, beneath the surface the industry is seeing immense change.” —Naisha Chirag Naik, University of Colorado Boulder Leeds School of Business

The long-standing NASA paradigm – defined by tightly controlled, cost-plus contracting and direct government management of both demand and supply – is giving way to a model in which government serves primarily as an enabler and incentive provider rather than the central operational driver. This shift reflects the broader maturation associated with the New Space era, she said.

“The government’s role is shifting from being the sole operator in the domain to setting base infrastructure for private entities, meaning they provide infrastructure, standards, and policy support to enable a new generation of companies to innovate,” she said.

Initiatives including NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS), NextSTEP and DARPA’s LunA-10 reflect the use of public investment to support commercial technologies and services. Yet the financial viability of future infrastructure remains difficult to establish when the timing and scale of commercial demand are uncertain.

“In essence, the cislunar industry faces a chicken and egg problem of achieving critical mass similar to that of a two-sided market,” Naik said in the paper. “Governments are hesitant to fund infrastructure without proven commercial demand while private actors delay investment until that infrastructure exists. This mutual dependence slows the emergence of a self-sustaining cislunar economy.”

The challenge is particularly relevant to communications and navigation infrastructure, which must be developed before spacecraft operators can rely on it as a service.

Commercial lunar transportation offers another example of how public-private partnerships are expanding international participation. Voyager Lunar Systems’ Griffin-1 lander, developed under NASA’s CLPS initiative, has completed acceptance testing and is targeting a late 2026 launch to the lunar south pole. The mission is expected to carry 10 payloads from six countries, including contributions from NASA, ESA and commercial partners.

The multinational payload manifest illustrates how commercial transportation services could support organizations without their own lunar landing capabilities, Dan Hendrickson, vice president of business development at Voyager Lunar Systems, told Constellations.

“Our job is to take on the hard parts: the vehicle, the integration, the operations, and the risk.” —Dan Hendrickson, Voyager Lunar Systems

The arrangement would allow participating space agencies, universities and companies to concentrate on their individual organizational objectives while relying on a common commercial provider for transportation and landing operations, he said.

Voyager also plans to use future Griffin landers as platforms for lunar surface power infrastructure. The proposed solar power systems would supply electricity to customers through the lunar night, potentially extending surface operations beyond the roughly 14-day lunar daylight period, Hendrickson said.

ESA’s Moonlight program represents a similar public-private approach to developing shared services, although its focus is communications and navigation. Developed through a partnership with a Telespazio-led industrial consortium, Moonlight is intended to provide infrastructure for lunar orbiters, landers, rovers and future surface facilities.

Rather than requiring each mission to establish its own supporting systems, Moonlight would allow operators to use services provided by a common network, Fabio Cannone, vice president of Moonlight’s Integrated Project Team at Telespazio, told Constellations.

“A company developing a rover, habitat, lander or orbiter can therefore focus its investments and resources on its core mission objectives, while relying on Moonlight as an external infrastructure for communication and navigation services,” Cannone said.

For Europe, the program also represents an effort to establish a more substantial role in lunar infrastructure. Through the partnership with ESA, Telespazio is combining institutional support with private-sector investment and capabilities to develop services for government and commercial customers, he said.

“Europe needs to move beyond participating in individual exploration missions and establish a long-term industrial and commercial presence, developing and operating infrastructure and services that support the broader lunar ecosystem.” —Fabio Cannone, Telespazio

That industrial objective depends partly on whether shared infrastructure can support a diverse group of future customers, including missions developed by organizations outside the consortium, he said.

Interoperability Becomes a Design Requirement

Shared communications and navigation infrastructure can reduce the equipment required aboard individual spacecraft, but different providers must also be able to support compatible services.

For lunar communications, the engineering advantages of relay satellites are substantial. Direct-to-Earth lunar communications require large, expensive ground antennas and heavy, power-intensive equipment aboard landers and rovers, Yasrine Ibnyahya, vice president of technology investments and partnerships at Viasat, told Constellations.

“That’s the problem we’re trying to solve,” Ibnyahya said, noting Viasat’s role in developing communications satellites for the Moonlight initiative.

Lunar relay satellites would allow spacecraft to use smaller, lighter terminals, reducing mission costs and easing demand on limited ground infrastructure, she said.

The technical requirements extend beyond communications, Ibnyahya said. Lunar navigation systems, like the one partner Telespazio is building, must account for different orbital conditions, radiation exposure and timing behavior, while planned activity around the south pole influences the coverage that future constellations will need to provide, she said.

As multiple organizations develop these capabilities, international standards are becoming important to their compatibility, she said.

NASA, ESA and other space agencies are advancing LunaNet, a framework for interoperable lunar communications and navigation services. The effort draws on the technical heritage of deep-space communications, where spacecraft have traditionally relied on point-to-point links with Earth, Ibnyahya said.

Telecommunications standards with a terrestrial heritage have evolved along a different path from those being developed for the Moon. Today, the primary standard being proposed for lunar communications is LunaNet, defined by ESA, NASA, and other national space agencies. LunaNet draws its heritage from the Deep Space Network and the point‑to‑point communication methods traditionally used for deep‑space missions. By contrast, Earth’s telecommunications ecosystem is built largely on 3GPP standards, she said.

Ibnyahya said the lunar and terrestrial standards may ultimately fuse. Companies are already looking at 4G for the Moon’s surface, while LunaNet remains the agency‑backed framework for cislunar communications today.

“Eventually as a satellite community, we’re going to have to converge on what’s the best way forward.” —Yasrine Ibnyahya, Viasat

For Telespazio, compatibility is influencing both the design of Moonlight and its relationships with other infrastructure developers.

“We actively participate in standardization bodies and work closely with other industry players, such as Intuitive Machines and ispace, to ensure full interoperability among different lunar communication and navigation infrastructures,” Cannone said.

The Moonlight program is also being designed to accommodate future changes to the LunaNet Interoperability Specification. Onboard software-update capabilities would allow the space segment to adapt to revised technical requirements without requiring hardware modifications, Cannone said.

The approach addresses a practical difficulty facing early lunar infrastructure: spacecraft being designed today may need to operate alongside systems and standards that are still under development.

Navigation presents another opportunity for cooperation between providers. On Earth, independent systems such as GPS and Galileo can be used together by compatible receivers, offering a model for future cislunar positioning, navigation and timing services.

The UNO paper identified the absence of standardized cislunar PNT infrastructure as a technology gap and pointed to interoperability among terrestrial navigation systems as a consideration for future development.

“A key aspect of this is that this innovation must also take interoperability into account,” Naik said in the paper.

For lunar navigation, the ability to combine compatible satellites from different systems could eventually improve positioning accuracy, Cannone said.

The potential benefits of interoperability therefore extend beyond allowing spacecraft to access different providers. They could also influence how infrastructure is coordinated to deliver more reliable and capable services, he said.

Similar interoperability considerations are emerging for infrastructure on the lunar surface. Voyager plans to use wireless charging interfaces for a proposed shared power distribution system that could accommodate equipment from different organizations, Hendrickson said.

“Astrobotic’s wireless charging system was designed as the foundation for a unified, interoperable power standard for the Moon and Mars,” Hendrickson said.

The proposed approach would allow equipment from different agencies and companies to draw electricity from a common power network using compatible receivers. While distinct from communications and navigation interoperability, the concept demonstrates how common technical interfaces could also support access to other essential lunar services.

From Compatible Systems to Federated Networks

Technical standards provide a foundation for interoperability, but combining services across independently operated networks would require a further level of cooperation.

Telespazio is pursuing international collaborations and partnerships based on the potential federation of multiple communications and navigation assets. The objective is to improve service performance, extend coverage toward continuous availability and increase the capacity to serve multiple customers simultaneously, Cannone said.

Such arrangements remain prospective. They depend on the deployment of additional infrastructure and agreements among the organizations developing and operating it, he said.

The motivation for cooperation could also evolve as lunar activity expands.

Today, much of the infrastructure supporting lunar exploration is backed by governments, with space agencies including ESA, NASA and JAXA financing capabilities and supporting their respective commercial sectors. International partnerships help establish services in a market that remains too small to sustain extensive independent infrastructure, Ibnyahya said.

Over time, cooperation could become increasingly important for operational reasons. Future human habitats and other mission-critical applications would place greater demands on communications reliability and redundancy, potentially requiring multiple networks to support one another, she said.

This introduces a different consideration for the development of lunar infrastructure. Early systems are being designed around relatively limited demand, while future services may need to accommodate more customers and more stringent performance requirements.

The lunar orbital environment is not currently comparable to the congested regions around Earth. But if substantial numbers of satellites are eventually deployed to support lunar activity, operators could face additional coordination requirements over the next several decades, Ibnyahya said.

Federation could provide one approach to expanding service availability without requiring every provider to develop an entirely self-contained network. Whether such arrangements become widespread will depend on the growth of lunar operations and the willingness of operators to coordinate their infrastructure.

Designing for an Uncertain Lunar Market

The possibility of greater network integration is influencing how infrastructure providers plan for future capacity, even as the commercial market remains difficult to forecast.

Moonlight’s planned constellation consists of one communications satellite capable of providing narrowband and broadband services and four navigation satellites. Telespazio intends to deploy the communications satellite and the first navigation satellite initially, followed by three additional navigation satellites as demand develops, Cannone said.

“Moonlight is designed for uncertainty: we cannot predict exactly how the lunar market will evolve, which missions will materialize, or when demand will scale up,” Cannone said.

“However, we can design an architecture capable of adapting to different possible futures, both technically and commercially,” he said.

Additionally, Telespazio’s space segment is designed with onboard software-update capabilities to adapt to evolving communications standards, including changes to the LunaNet Interoperability Specification, without hardware modifications, Cannone said.

Moonlight’s phased deployment also allows the program to respond to changes in the number and types of missions requiring services. Its planned customers include orbiters, landers, rovers and future habitats, each with different communications and navigation requirements, Cannone said.

The approach illustrates a broader challenge facing commercial lunar infrastructure: Providers must make decisions about technical capacity and long-term investment without knowing which future missions will proceed or when their requirements will materialize.

The UNO paper examined this uncertainty across the wider cislunar economy, including the financial and operational risks associated with commercial investment. Its projections of future mission activity were based on historical mission data rather than a forecast of demand for particular infrastructure services.

For Moonlight, scalability is therefore being addressed through the program’s architecture rather than through assumptions about a specific future customer base.

The same planning considerations extend to the technologies that could eventually support greater communications capacity.

Telespazio is examining the use of optical communications constellations as intermediate relay nodes between Earth and the Moon. Such systems could support higher data rates and reduce dependence on radio-frequency spectrum, Cannone said.

Cooperation as a Strategic Priority

The development of shared lunar services also reflects a broader consideration for countries investing in lunar infrastructure: how to establish independent capabilities while participating in international exploration and commercial activity. For Europe, developing communications and navigation infrastructure that can accommodate different missions and integrate with other providers is part of a longer-term effort to strengthen its position in the cislunar economy, Cannone said.

“We believe that the growth of Europe’s commercial space sector is essential to strengthening Europe’s competitiveness and strategic autonomy in the emerging cislunar and deep-space economy,” Cannone said.

That ambition does not preclude cooperation with other nations or commercial operators. Moonlight’s intended customer base extends beyond European missions, and its development involves partnerships with companies pursuing their own lunar infrastructure, he said.

The same considerations apply more broadly as national agencies and commercial providers establish services around the Moon. Independent infrastructure can support strategic and commercial interests while also contributing to shared networks, making international cooperation an important factor in how these investments serve the wider lunar economy.