A new startup run by a former acting NASA administrator hopes to capitalize on the recent zeal for lunar space exploration by building robotic outposts and spacecraft to send to space near the Moon. Their goal is to create a fleet of robotic helpers that can do a variety of tasks near the Moon, such as providing internet capabilities, collecting data, refueling spacecraft, and assembling structures in lunar space. The company called Quantum Space was formed in 2021. At the helm is Steve Jurczyk, who served as NASA's associate administrator beginning in 2018, before becoming the agency's acting administrator when President Biden was inaugurated. After retiring in May, Jurczyk decided to team up with three additional entrepreneurs and experts in the space industry to create this new company based out of Maryland.

Some astronauts may spend a year orbiting cislunar space before NASA finally makes its way to Mars. At the Human to Mars Summit in Washington DC, Greg Williams from the agency's human exploration division revealed the details of NASA's two-phased plan to send humans to the red planet. According to Space, he said the first phase includes four manned flights to cislunar space in order to deliver a crew habitat, a science research module, a power source and an airlock for visiting vehicles. The whole installation could also have a robotic arm like the Canadarm2 with some autonomous functions. All those trips will take place between 2018 and 2026.

Defense and aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin today announced a proposal to establish a science laboratory that will orbit Mars starting in 2028. It will house six astronauts who will spend 10 to 11 months onboard, remotely driving robots, flying drones, and studying samples from the Red Planet in real time in anticipation of landing humans on its surface in the following decade. "We will be able to accomplish more science in just a few months from Mars's orbit than we have in the previous 40 years," Tony Antonelli, former astronaut and now Lockheed's chief technologist for civil space exploration, told The Christian Science Monitor in a phone interview. Though the company hasn't released technical details about its Mars Base Camp, or an estimate of how much it would cost, Mr. Antonelli said most of it would be assembled in cislunar space – between the Earth and moon – over a series of missions in the 2020s. It will rely on technologies that Lockheed is developing with NASA now, which should keep the project affordable says Antonelli.