Fellowship Research Showcase | Ground Rules: Decision logic for lunar ground operations

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.

​As activity on the Moon accelerates, a critical question remains unresolved: how large should an operator's area of operations be, and what makes that claim legitimate? Without a shared methodology, operators have incentives to overclaim space, while regulators and international bodies lack a technical basis for evaluating those claims.