Abstract#

NASA has published Moon to Mars and Artemis architecture plans for long-term human activity on and around the Moon. These plans include surface habitats, lunar terrain vehicles, pressurized rovers, power systems, science operations, cargo, communications, and activity around the lunar south pole, where sunlight, shadow, terrain, and possible water ice all affect mission design.

This project turns those lunar concepts into clearer, interactive plans. Builders will be able to show, test, improve, and share mission concepts with the community. The goal is to create useful open infrastructure that helps space architects, students, researchers, and future project teams design better lunar missions together.

We will do this in LunCoSim, an open simulation toolkit for planning and testing Moon infrastructure before it is built in the real world.

Problem#

The next phase of lunar exploration is not only about landing on the Moon. It requires planning systems that work together on the surface: habitats, rovers, power, communications, thermal control, science instruments, construction equipment, crew movement, supplies, and resource use.

There is no widely shared interactive model where a broad community can see how these systems fit together. Many lunar ideas remain in documents, sketches, CAD files, static renders, or discussions exchanged between teams. Even a focused interactive visualization is valuable because it lets people place a base on terrain, move a rover around it, compare layouts, and understand the mission as an integrated system.

Specialized aerospace tools exist, but they can be difficult for students, builders, architects, researchers, and public communities to access or combine. Without a common simulation base, each project must rebuild foundations instead of extending shared terrain, assets, assumptions, and mission-planning workflows.

Solution#

We will make lunar base and rover concepts interactive. Instead of only showing a picture of a habitat or rover, the simulation will let users place assets on lunar terrain, test how they fit, drive around a site, check routes, observe power and thermal constraints, and understand how a design behaves as part of a larger mission system.

The project builds on the existing LunCoSim foundation rather than starting a new simulator. The current system already includes Shackleton-de Gerlache Connecting Ridge terrain, mission scene setup, asset placement, simulation workflows, rover references, habitat and lander assets, base components, and tools for visualizing mission concepts.

USD, Universal Scene Description, is a widely used standard for composing 3D scenes from reusable layers. Using USD, lunar scenes can be organized into terrain, rovers, habitats, tools, and mission assets that are easier to extend, share, and connect with tools such as NVIDIA Omniverse and LunCoSim.

The funded work will organize reusable lunar assets, package example mission scenarios, document contributor workflows, improve specific simulation paths, and produce public demos showing how interactive simulation can support project planning, scientific communication, and public understanding.

Benefits#

An interactive lunar model gives people a practical way to turn mission ideas into something they can see, test, improve, and share. Users can design a mission visually and evaluate parts of it under lunar constraints using measurable simulation data.

• Lunar bases and habitats: compare layouts, deployment concepts, module assembly, thermal conditions, power consumption, and resource assumptions before committing to a design.
• Rovers: create a rover, drive it around a mission site, and test routes, slopes, range, cargo access, and power feasibility.
• Science and mission planning: connect visual design with terrain, sunlight and shadow, thermal risk, resource locations, and physical constraints.
• Education and communication: make complex systems visible and understandable for students, researchers, partners, contributors, and the public.
• MoonDAO community building: give the community a shared place to explore base concepts, compare layouts, explain decisions, and invite new participants into lunar design work.

In the long term, interactive lunar models can help people understand what living and working on the Moon may require. They make complex systems visible, testable, and easier to improve before hardware is sent from Earth.

Risks and Scope Control#

The main risk is scope creep. Lunar simulation can become complex quickly if the project tries to model every detail of physics, robotics, terrain, power, communications, and human operations at once. LunCoSim is also a large technical project, so improvements must remain focused and carefully scoped.

The project will control this risk by using the existing LunCoSim foundation, selecting the exact demo scenarios and technical backlog by day 14, and prioritizing working examples around lunar bases, rover interaction, terrain, USD scene composition, and mission visualization. The grant does not promise a comprehensive, high-fidelity model of every lunar system.

Objectives#

The 90-day project is organized around three objectives. Deliverables are designed to package and improve existing work, make it understandable to users, and create a measurable public-engagement path for MoonDAO.

Objective #1: Package an interactive lunar base model#

Goal: Within 90 days of project approval, deliver a lunar base scenario that users can open, understand, and explore. The demo will show how terrain, habitats, rovers, power assets, landing areas, communications, and ISRU elements fit together.

Key Results#

Member(s) responsible: Project Lead / Base and Content Lead, with support from the Technical Lead.

Objective #2: Execute a public visibility and community-engagement campaign#

Goal: Make the interactive lunar model visible, understandable, and useful to MoonDAO and the wider space-building community. Public material will show what exists, what users can do with it, how the work advances MoonDAO's lunar-base goals, and how interested people can participate.

Key Results#

Marketing and Visibility Plan#

• Content system: Each core demo will be repurposed into a long-form walkthrough, short clip or visual excerpt, technical explanation, and community update. This provides repeated visibility without requiring a separate production effort for every channel.
• Primary channels: MoonDAO Discord, LunCo X for community updates; YouTube for searchable demos and tutorials; LunCoSim GitHub for technical releases and documentation; LinkedIn for aerospace and professional audiences.
• Community outreach: Share selected releases with relevant space-architecture, lunar-exploration, open-source simulation, robotics, and student communities. Outreach will follow each community's posting rules and emphasize useful technical content rather than generic promotion.
• MoonDAO amplification: Every major asset will visibly credit MoonDAO as the project supporter. Posts and video descriptions will link to the MoonDAO project page and invite people to follow the project, join discussion, test the simulator, and explore MoonDAO participation.
• Measurement and reporting: Maintain a public-facing content and engagement log. The final report will list all content URLs, distribution channels, reach and engagement metrics, tester counts, feedback themes, and any measurable referrals.

Member(s) responsible: Both members. Aleksa leads content, demos, reporting, distribution, and public engagement. Rod supports technical explanations, demonstrations, and public technical feedback.

Objective #3: Improve the existing simulation workflows#

Goal: Make the current simulation foundation more useful and stable for demos, contributors, and future lunar-mission design work. This objective focuses on targeted improvements required by the selected demos, not expansion in every possible direction.

Key Results#

Member(s) responsible: Technical Lead / Simulator Developer, with support from the Project Lead.

Team#

Both team members will engage the public by sharing progress, collecting feedback, explaining the work, and helping users understand how the simulation can support lunar-mission design.

Team Bios#

Stefan Aleksa Djurdjevic - Project Lead / Base and Content Lead: Stefan is an entrepreneur and deep-tech project manager based in Belgrade, Serbia, specializing in aerospace initiatives, product management, and space-exploration research.

Rod Mamin - Technical Lead / Simulator Developer: Rod is a space engineer, entrepreneur, and advocate for decentralized space exploration. He is the founder of LunCo, an open-source platform for collaborative lunar-base design and space-mission simulations.

Multisig Members#

The project multisig will include Stefan Aleksa Djurdjevic and Rod Mamin unless updated before submission.

• Stefan Aleksa Djurdjevic: 0xF9b86a59375617E1E8A548e3eD82742E658FE7fc
• Rod Mamin: 0xA64f2228cceC96076c82abb903021C33859082F8

Timeline#

Deadline for the project: 90 days after the proposal passes.

Budget#