The Air Force Research Laboratory is launching a $30 million initiative, tapping the private sector to accelerate the development and acquisition of technologies for future operations concerning the Moon. Dubbed Cislunar Prime, the program will use a system of 15 prize contracts, worth $2 million each, to develop weapons systems in the vast orbital region between Earth and the Moon.
“Space is often described as hard and difficult and a fight that we’re not seeing,” General Stephen Purdy told a space-industry conference when launching the program. “But I would characterize cislunar as even harder and more difficult, and we really don’t see what’s going on in that arena.” The general cited President Trump’s December 2025 executive order while emphasizing the importance of military operations in cislunar space, as well as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine’s citing it as a “warfighting domain” in September.
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