NASA announced over the weekend a suite of awards and mission updates to expand its Moon Base program, including the selection of eight companies for a commercial cargo delivery contract potentially worth $10 billion and the development of a nuclear-powered rover built from spare Mars rover hardware.
Related previous coverage in the player above: NASA’s plans for a moon base could take shape by the end of 2026
The announcements, made Saturday at the MAX POWER aerospace expo and air show at the Kennedy Space Center, advance commercial robotic deliveries, launch and orbital transfer services, surface infrastructure, and science capabilities as the agency works with industry to establish a sustained presence near the Moon’s South Pole.
“We are building the Moon Base mission by mission,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said. “Today’s announcements expand nearly every part of that campaign, using the playbook that carried NASA through its greatest eras: fly often, learn, apply those lessons, and get better and more capable with every mission. When our astronauts return to the Moon, they will arrive with the first elements of the Moon Base already waiting for them on the surface.”
Carlos García-Galán, manager of the Moon Base Program, said that in the eight months since the program’s “Ignition,” the agency has consolidated efforts into a streamlined campaign for technology development and implementation. “Most importantly, we’ve taken action, awarding new contracts and forging new partnerships to accelerate development.”
To strengthen cargo lander capacity, NASA selected eight companies eligible to compete for future lunar surface delivery missions under a new Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) 2 framework: Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, ispace-U.S., Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman Space Systems, SpaceX, and Voyager Technologies.
The companies will manage, build, and operate landers carrying NASA science, technology, and infrastructure payloads. The 10-year, multiple-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity master contract has a combined maximum value of $10 billion. NASA also raised the value of the existing CLPS 1.0 contract from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion to support initial Phase One Moon Base objectives. The original contract remains in place through November 2028, with an additional five years to complete deliveries through November 2033.
NASA is moving forward with PROMISE (Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration), a six-wheeled, nuclear-powered rover that will land at the South Pole to characterize the surface and subsurface, assess resource potential including ice in permanently shadowed regions, and provide data for landing site selection and future infrastructure. The rover can operate through long lunar nights.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, a division of Caltech, will manage the mission and build the rover from spare flight components and engineering test models from the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers. Using proven hardware and software reduces cost and shortens the timeline. Instruments include a drill to extract regolith from about 3 feet (1 meter) below the surface, spectrometers, temperature and radiation sensors, and cameras. It will also demonstrate NASA’s High Performance Spaceflight Computing system and advanced autonomy capabilities. Launch is targeted for late 2028 for an 18-month mission.
Blue Origin received a $94 million base contract, with a performance-based option worth an additional $140 million, to deliver and deploy PROMISE using its Mark 1 lander. The award expands a May 2026 task order to deliver two lunar terrain vehicles.
For transportation, NASA awarded six task orders totaling about $1.3 billion under its Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) contract to Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin, and Impulse Space. The awards support three mission types: risk-reduction flights including the CAPSTONE 02 spacecraft to test navigation and communications; delivery of MoonFall drones and other assets to survey the South Pole ahead of astronauts; and demonstrations of orbital transfer vehicles to increase cargo capacity. Some missions will use Blue Origin’s New Glenn, Relativity Space’s Terran R, and SpaceX’s Falcon 9, with in-space transportation from Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Impulse Space, and Quantum Space.
Separately, SpaceX was selected under an existing lunar logistics contract for a Cislunar Communications Deployment Demonstration. The company will launch communications satellites aboard a Starship to cislunar space in 2028 to inform future lunar networks.
On the surface, NASA plans to acquire commercial components for a Mini-Communications and Solar Tower (miniCAST). Awards went to Honeybee Robotics (a Blue Origin company) for energy storage, Redwire for power generation, and Yank Technologies Inc. for wireless power transfer. Engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will assemble and test the systems. Work is expected to begin within months on components, with a solicitation for fully integrated power systems anticipated in early 2027.
NASA also intends to release a directed call under its Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP-3 B) solicitation to address high-priority data gaps through small missions, payloads, or commercial data purchases.
The efforts support Artemis astronaut missions of increasing complexity to the South Pole, advancing science and technology while establishing an enduring human presence that can serve as a foundation for crewed missions to Mars.
More information is available at nasa.gov/moonbase.
