Lunar Rail Network: Northrop Grumman's Plan to Speed Up Surface Travel on the Moon

In this video I explore Northrop Grumman’s concept for a lunar rail network, designed to speed up surface travel on the Moon as part of DARPA’s 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study.

---------------
Love learning about space startups? Your support helps me research deeper, produce higher-quality videos, and keep this content coming! Even a small coffee fuels the next big idea. ☕

Support here: https://buymeacoffee.com/spacestartupnews
---------------

00:00 Intro
01:25 Challenges with Roads
01:41 Challenges with Lunar Roads: Dust
02:54 Challenges with Lunar Roads: Range
04:20 Challenges with Lunar Roads: Payload Capacity
05:28 Challenges with Lunar Roads: Rolling Resistance
06:01 Challenges with Lunar Roads: Surface Wear
06:27 Challenges with Lunar Roads: Recurring Costs
07:04 Building the Lunar Rail Network
07:16 Construction and Maintenance Equipment
07:44 Rail Track Infrastructure
08:31 Rail Station Infrastructure
09:11 Rolling Stock
09:50 Building the Lunar Rail Network in Phases
10:00 Phase 1: Minimum Viable Experiment (200-Metre Test Track)
11:32 Phase 2: Scaling to Operational Use
12:12 Phase 3: Pilot Expansion (5–15 Kilometres)
12:33 Phase 4: Network Growth (Tens of Kilometres)
12:55 Phase 5: Full Operational Expansion (Hundreds of Kilometres)
13:26 Selecting the Site for the Lunar Rail Network
14:42 A Ride on the Lunar Rail Network Will Cost You $8 million
15:26 Challenges in Building a Lunar Rail Network
15:39 Demand and Resource Harvesting
16:29 Extreme Temperature Fluctuations
16:57 Wheel-Rail Stress
17:17 Lunar Soil and Moonquakes
17:43 Reduced Gravity and Traction
19:10 Final Thoughts
20:09 Outro

Sources:

Lunar Rail Network Infrastructure Study by Northrop Grumman: https://www.darpa.mil/sites/default/files/attachment/2024-12/northrop-grumman-luna-10.pdf