Name: Moonwalker: The Mapp to Mars
Uploaded: 2026-06-09
Duration: 10 min 1 s

Before we take our first steps on Mars, we have to learn how to exist long-term on the Moon. Lunar Outpost Founder and CEO Justin Cyrus discusses MAPP, the first commercial rover to operate on another planetary body. Together, they're rewriting what's possible for planetary exploration while building a space economy—because to Cyrus, lunar mobility isn't just a step, but the whole staircase.

Justin Cyrus, Founder and CEO, Lunar Outpost
Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP), Exploration-Class Lunar Rover, Lunar Outpost

Moonwalker: The Mapp to Mars

Conferences

Hey, good morning, everyone. Uh, my name's Justin Cyrus. I'm the CEO and founder of Lunar Outpost. Apologies, I couldn't be there with you in the room today. Uh, NASA just awarded us a $220 million contract to drive astronauts on the moon. As you can imagine, uh, we're pretty busy kicking things off on the lunar terrain vehicle program, uh, but with that being said, I'm really excited to join you guys here remotely. Next slide. So I wanted to start off with a quote from Carl Sagan. Exploration is in our nature, and I think first and foremost that captures. That captures our sense as human beings. The rest of this quote, I think, really speaks to where we're at today in the broader space industry. We are really at the beginning of the cosmic shores. We have a long way. Go. We have a long way to explore and for those of you space fans out there, you'll definitely know who Carl Sagan is, but he did a phenomenal job over the course of decades of bringing space science, technology, and physics to the American public. So I think as we get ready to establish the first base on the moon by 2030, this is a good quote to kind of describe our next step in that adventure. Next slide. So this is a quick background on lunar Outpost, who we are and what we've been up to. We did land our first rover on the surface of the moon last year in March of 2025. We have 9 other missions in cislunar space, and we have many more coming, each one building in terms of size, capability, complexity, but all building towards one goal and all building towards one vision, which is to have a permanent human presence beyond Earth. Next slide. So this is a picture of that first rover that went to the moon last year in March of 2025. This is our map. It's our exploration class rover. It's about the size of a small dog, and it's this size because that was the maximum size a lot of these early lunar landers could actually take to the moon. What I loved about this mission was not only the technology and the science that we were able to capture and test, but also the commercialization that happened as a part of it. Uh, I'll talk about that a little bit more here in a second. Next slide. So this is a picture of our map rover being integrated onto the intuitive machine's lander. Uh, this was the IM2 mission, uh, and that backdrop is actually the SpaceX Falcon 9 fairing. Next slide. And this is one of my favorite pictures of all time because this was our first lunar rover that was alive in space and on its way to the moon. So we're sitting in Mission Control Center at Kennedy Space Center, and literally all you get for that first health health ping is a green dot on your screen. There's not a lot of information that comes with it. It's either you get a green dot or you don't. So once we got that green dot, we knew our rover was alive and we knew we were on our way to the moon. Next one. Now while that mission unfortunately did crash land into the lunar surface, we were able to survive that crash landing, which is one of our greatest technological accomplishments to date. So the intuitive machine's lander came down at the South Pole and tipped over sideways. They ended up dragging our rover across a couple 100 m of lunar regolith and came to rest safely in a small crater near the south pole of the moon. With that being said, Intuitive Machines was still able to get quite a bit of data back from the mission and lunar outpost. We certainly took advantage of that and got our data back as well. So we've got to operate all the way on the way to the moon. We survived the tough landing, and then we got data back from the moon, and this was just our first go. That being said, what actually paid for this mission to occur was the commercialization. What surprises most people is this is not, this was not a NASA mission. NASA actually only gave us $1 to sell them space resources to set the legal and procedural framework of selling space resources and really cementing the US law that US companies can go out into space, collect a resource, and they own it. Everything else you see on the screen funded that mission and drove it to be a success. Everything with our collaboration with Lego, which is probably my favorite collaboration of all time, we're actually the first space company with a Lego set. You can see that a little bit here behind me, to our collaboration with Juventus and Adidas that brought this mission to over 600 million of their fans across the world. That's how we brought the message out to the globe. On the other side of it, we're testing out critical technologies such as Nokia's 4G and 5G LTE, uh, which is setting the groundwork for future communication, future communications on the lunar surface, but also in other extreme environments in space, uh, all the way to Castrol that sponsored the Mission Control Center that you see here behind me where we actually operated the rover from last year. So this is where we've been. Uh, I'm going to talk a little bit more about where we are today and where we're going, uh, because that's, frankly, I think, uh, what's going to surprise most of you. Next slide. So where we're at today, NASA's just awarded us a $220 million human rated rover contract for the lunar South Pole. This is our Pegasus lunar terrain vehicle. It will be launched and landed by Blue Origin. It's going to the lunar South Pole, and a few of the unique features of this vehicle are it's going to operate a year-round, tele-operated autonomously, but it's also going to be able to drive astronauts safely and reliably on the surface of the moon. That's a bit of a difference from the Apollo LRB, which can only be driven while astronauts were there. Additionally, this vehicle can fold and deploy very similar to the Apollo LRV, and what that gets us is compatibility with quite a few landers, so we are not reliant on any one company to get us there. This rover is not only providing the human-rated mobility for astronauts, it is also setting the stage for the moon base and our Eagle lunar terrain vehicle, which I'm going to talk about next. Next slide. So with our Eagle lunar terrain vehicle, this is still under competition. It's already exciting enough to be able to drive astronauts around on the lunar surface. We have to deliver that Pegasus lunar terrain vehicle in 17 months from start getting the requirements to delivery for integration at the launch site. After we deliver the Pegasus lunar terrain vehicle, then we immediately start working on the Eagle LTV. Eagle is a vehicle that's going to build out the moon base. Everything from the power of the communications, the launch and landing pads, the roads, the habitats, that is all going to be built, deployed and maintained by the Eagle lunar terrain vehicle. And as I said a little bit earlier, we do have the contract for Pegasus. Eagle's what's next, but this is setting the stage for how humanity interacts with space for decades to come. We are no longer just going out to these other planetary bodies for flags and footprint missions. We're going out to establish permanent infrastructure and utilizing that infrastructure for large scale commercialization and industrialization. If you think of Pegasus as the sports car, kind of the fun dune buggy, eagles, most certainly the space truck as we push on our way to build the moon base. And that's just our quick idea of what we believe the moon base is gonna look like. Next slide. Now to talk about where we're going, so I gave you where we've been in the past year, where we are today, where we're going. We have, uh, as I said at the beginning of the presentation, 9 missions going to Sislandar space, 10 actually if you count another mission that was just announced by the European Space Agency. Over the course of the next 4 years, each and every one of those missions is building capability, building critical infrastructure, which allows us to not only push further out into space to explore, but allows us to access two things that space has an infinite amount of the power and the resources that are necessary for that permanent human presence. And if we're able to access either the power or the or the resources, we will fundamentally change life back here on Earth. And so the moon is a jumping off point to further out in the solar system, but it's also a step change in how we operate as humanity. So we're certainly looking forward to the next few years to being a part of NASA's moon-based program, to driving astronauts around with our lunar terrain vehicle, but also building towards a future where there is a permanent human presence in space, and we are accessing the infinite amount of resources that space has to offer. So thank you very much for having me today. I hope you all are having a blast in Aspen. I wish I could be there to join you, uh, but I'm certainly, uh, I'm looking forward to seeing many of you here in the near future. Thank you.