Updated September 26 with Lockheed Martin statement.
WASHINGTON – Lunar Outpost, one of three companies that won NASA contracts earlier this year to begin design work on the Artemis lunar rovers, added Leidos to its team after parting ways with Lockheed Martin.
Colorado-based Lunar Outpost announced on September 24 that Leidos had joined its Lunar Dawn team that is designing a rover for NASA's Lunar Land Vehicle (LTV) Services program. Lunar Outpost was one of three companies, along with Astrolab and Intuitive Machines, selected for contracts by NASA in April for the first phase of the program.
Leidos will bring expertise in human factors, as well as areas such as mission assurance and systems engineering. “Astronaut safety is our number one priority when building our vehicle, and we are thrilled to have the industry leader in human-centered design on our team,” said Forrest Meyen, Lunar Dawn program director at Lunar Outpost. , in a statement.
That statement listed the other members of the Lunar Dawn team: General Motors, Goodyear and MDA Space. Notably absent was Lockheed Martin, whom Lunar Outpost had described as its “principal partner” on the rover when it won the NASA contract in April. He website for Lunar Dawn also did not include Lockheed Martin as a partner.
In a September 25 interview, Justin Cyrus, CEO of Lunar Outpost, confirmed that Lockheed Martin was no longer involved in the rover project. “We simply could not reach an agreement while we were negotiating the terms and conditions of the statement of work for this contract,” he said.
He did not elaborate on the specific issues that led the companies to pull out. “We still think Lockheed Martin is a great company,” he said. “However, it was not a good option for us or them to work together as part of this contract.”
“We are no longer part of the Lunar Dawn team because withdrawing made the most sense for our business and strategy,” Lockheed Martin said in a statement to SpaceNews on September 26. “Over the last three years we have invested significant resources to develop Lunar Mobility Technology. This is in addition to evaluating our next steps on how this technology and our Lunar Mobility Vehicle can best be used on the Moon and towards building a future lunar economy.”
Cyrus said the companies decided to part ways about three months ago, although neither company confirmed it publicly until now. Following that decision, Lunar Outpost began discussions with Leidos about the possibility of joining Lunar Dawn. He said the companies delayed announcing the collaboration agreement until the paperwork was completed.
Leidos is not a direct replacement for Lockheed Martin in the rover project. “Leidos is bringing its own specific set of capabilities to the Lunar Dawn team,” he said, and the roles that Lockheed would have handled would be redistributed among the other companies involved.
Lockheed's departure also means changes to the rover itself. New illustrations of the rover released by Lunar Outpost reveal significant changes compared to the illustration Lunar Outpost published in April when it won the NASA contract. The changes, Cyrus said, reflect the removal of Lockheed's intellectual property, or IP, from the design,
“This rover does not have any Lockheed Martin intellectual property. “This is just the intellectual property of Lunar Outpost,” he said. “We made a pretty detailed effort to make sure nothing was left over from the work with Lockheed Martin.”
Lunar Outpost is not revealing details about the revised design, although Cyrus said the company will share more details in the coming months. He added that the design meets or exceeds NASA requirements for the LTV program, and that “there weren't too many modifications” to the contract due to the change in companies involved.
Leidos had previously been a bidder in the LTV programoffering a different design that was not selected by NASA. The Lunar Dawn team is considering incorporating some unspecified elements of that design into the rover. “Some things are being evaluated from the previous Leidos design,” Cyrus said. “It's not out of the question that something could break through as we go through this process.”
Despite the change in companies involved, he said the team was making good progress on the LTV contract. That included recently completing a system requirements review and a system design review. The team will deliver a static mock-up of the rover to the Johnson Space Center this week, where the crew office will test it and provide feedback on interfaces and usability.
This initial phase of the contract will mature the designs of the three selected companies to the preliminary design review level. NASA then plans to solicit proposals for the next phase that will support the development of the rover and its delivery to the moon. While NASA has selected two or more vendors for other service contracts, Agency officials confirmed this summer that they will select just one company for the next phase.citing limited budgets.
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