Framework
Lunar right to repair.
In a sealed habitat, repair is not a maintenance function. It is the only safety valve. A crew that cannot obtain the part, cannot read the diagnostic data and cannot get permission has no safety valve at all.
The definition
Repair access is the set of rights and deliverables that allow the people present at a worksite to inspect, service, remove, replace and test the systems their safety depends on, without the presence, authorization or approval of the party that built them.
It applies where emergency return is measured in days or longer: a lunar surface site, a cislunar station, a long-duration transit vehicle. The distinguishing condition is not distance. It is that there is no service technician to call.
The five rights
Repair access is not one right. It is five, and each can be granted or withheld independently. A program can have the first four and withhold the fifth, which leaves the qualified person legally exposed for doing the right thing. This paper asks for all five, together.
Power, data, fluid, mechanical and berthing interfaces documented to a published standard, sufficient for a technician who did not build the system to remove and replace a component.
A catalog of maintenance-significant items with specifications, approved alternates and lead times, and a procurement path that does not begin with a contract modification.
The maintenance procedure, the diagnostic, the fault code and the part number, with rights of use. Rights that exist in a contract the crew is not party to are not rights the crew has.
The authority to open the panel, and to send someone to do it, without waiting on an authorization that requires a contractor who is not there.
Who is qualified to do the work, and who is responsible when it goes wrong. A program can grant the first four and withhold this one, leaving the qualified person legally exposed for doing the right thing.
The claim
Repair access is a term of the contract, not a right asserted after delivery.
The rights mostly exist already. FAR 52.227-14 gives the government unlimited rights in data that constitute manuals or instructional material for routine maintenance and repair. What the clause has to do is order the data delivered. Delivery is the missing half.
The model clause
A drafting model for award terms that keep a crew able to fix what it depends on. Fourteen paragraphs: delivery of maintenance data, interface documentation to a standard, a spares catalog with lead times, a crew-initiated request channel, access and permission, training, separate pricing, flow-down, export control and a qualified-servicer alternative.
Version 1.0, October 2026. A drafting model, not legal advice, and not a representation of any agency position. Counsel must adapt it to the award instrument, the appropriations and the applicable supplement.
The work behind it
- One-Way Architecture — the right to repair as a life-safety requirement for permanent cislunar settlement. Williams and Zee, 2026.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23786221
- The Polar-Lunar Continuum — the investment framework that treats the Arctic and the lunar south pole as one capital-allocation problem. Pullen and Williams, 2026.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23786228
Comments, proposed redlines and requests for a version adapted to a specific award: official@milkywayeconomy.com.
MilkyWayEconomy is an innovation advisory firm based in Washington, DC and Maine.