Space research has made many significant discoveries since man first set foot in outer space over 50 years ago, but one Cambridge startup is still dedicating its resources to understanding the moon better.
Lunar Station Corporation is a startup that does moon navigational research to help its customers including exploration professionals, rocket builders, and aerospace researchers navigate the moon for their lunar expeditions and scientific research. The three-year-old company sells MoonHacker, an analytical software that gives data about the moon’s atmosphere, terrain, and environmental factors that help identify the challenges that need to be overcome to go to the moon.
“If you can operate on the moon and return successfully, and do that repeatedly, then you’ll be able to do that for Mars as well,” CEO and co-founder of Lunar Station Corporation, Blair DeWitt said. “We can go even farther much more efficiently and safer once we’ve mastered the moon.”
While LSC currently does not have any exploration equipment in outer space right now to gather its own data, the company is plugged into NASA’s measurements and US Geological services data sets—information that DeWitt said has been validated and accepted.
Why is LSC needed if there’s already information from NASA? DeWitt notes that while NASA is a fantastic scientific organization that has conducted brilliant experiments, its data doesn’t translate to something that is commercially viable.
“NASA has done so many experiments that it is a data jungle,” DeWitt said. “And our expertise as a team is very well suited for taking the data jungle and taming it and condensing it down to something that is really effective and usable by commercial space.”
Last year, LSC was one of eight companies worldwide recognized as a “Thought-Leader in Space 2018” at The 69th International Astronautical Congress.
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The company is also planning on launching MoonWatcher Satellite, which would have cameras built by the company into space in early 2020, after being unable to launch it last year. MoonWatcher would offer a live feed of the moon and the send back data for analysis.
“We’re pretty much for anyone and everybody that wants to spend one lunar day on the moon and we’re here to maximize that one day on the moon,” DeWitt said.
Launched by co-founders DeWitt and Barret Schlegelmilch in 2016, the company has nine employees, all based in Cambridge and raised $195,288 in total. DeWitt worked on the startup in 2015 when he was getting a MBA from MIT.
