Open Lunar Foundation is excited to welcome Nhat Nguyen to the core team. Read more about Nhat’s background and position in this blog post.

In this research fellowship showcase, Aaron Mackey presents his work on Designated Lunar Areas (DLAs) and the Ground Rules Toolkit, a proposed framework for coordinating lunar surface operations before conflicts arise.

Every proposed lunar governance framework borrows from Earth. UNCLOS, the Antarctic Treaty, UNFSA, ITU spectrum. Each encodes hard-won lessons about managing shared resources without sovereignty. And each of them breaks down when it is applied to the lunar south pole. Lunar water ice is finite, geographically fixed, and non-renewable on any human timescale. No existing framework was built with that in mind.

Open Lunar's Designated Lunar Areas framework offers a way for operators to declare their footprint, share the data behind it, and coordinate with their neighbors before conflicts become crises. Here's how the three-ring structure works, and why the window to adopt it is open right now.

The past few decades of lunar exploration relied on open data sharing from scientific missions. In this new era of exploration — with more lunar actors, and commercial companies looking to potentially collect proprietary datasets — enabling data sharing will be more important than ever. Learn how Open Lunar supports open source data sharing of lunar data through the Lunar Ledger platform.

Watch this recording of a recent webinar, where we explored a simple but important question: when is the Moon truly for everyone? The discussion brought together perspectives from governance, technology, culture, and community leadership to examine who shapes lunar futures and what more inclusive stewardship could look like. 

At NASA's Ignition event in March 2026, Administrator Jared Isaacman outlined a major shift in the Artemis program. Open Lunar board member Will Pomerantz breaks down what changed, what it means, and what to watch next.

This piece makes the case for Designated Lunar Areas: not as claims, but as coordination infrastructure, drawing on surprising parallels from FCC radio-silent zones to Antarctic governance. The stakes couldn't be higher, and the window to get this right is closing fast.

Artemis II marks more than a technical achievement. It is a reminder that humanity’s return to the Moon should reflect our highest aspirations, including collaboration, transparency, and a shared commitment to the future we build there.

As lunar missions multiply and converge on the same scarce, high-value sites, the absence of basic coordination frameworks isn't just a bureaucratic gap — it's a recipe for real conflict. Three international experts break down why information-sharing remains so hard, and what a practical path forward might look like.

The Open Lunar Foundation and the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on March 20, 2026, at the Earth-Space Governance Conference in Leiden, Netherlands. 

In this post, we explore Open Lunar’s role as a Permanent Observer to COPUOS. We speak with Hasan Abbas about how the forum functions in practice and how today’s debates are shaping the future of lunar governance.

Amid a global lunar rush, will we land peaceful norms alongside our spacecraft? 

Open Lunar is a nonprofit founded by a global community—some of the field’s most experienced and visionary minds. Open Lunar is dedicated to ensuring that when humanity returns to the Moon, we do so in a way we can be proud of.

Open Lunar Foundation is excited to welcome Samuel Jardine to the core team. Read a welcome note from Sam and learn more about his background and position. 

Read more about our recent Development Director posting and what our team is looking for.

Here’s a comprehensive, curated, and contextualized linked list of lunar technology and science developments across 2025, organized by country or region. There is also a section on progressive cooperative & collaborative international efforts—because these are the gems we need more of—as well as a section discussing shortcomings in the same. If someone asks you what’s happening at the Moon, say all of this is.

A volcano of new results which have improved our understanding of our cosmic companion.

A new approach to lunar timekeeping—built from affordable commercial hardware, redundant clock networks, and shared open infrastructure.

Every year, we work to collate our recent insights and share it publicly through our fellowship research showcase events. This event celebrates the launch of the Lunar Areas Field Guide by Christine Tiballi.