NASA Moon Base awards announced on 7 November cover landers and a nuclear-powered rover, as the agency sets out the next stage of its plan to build a permanent presence on the Moon. The awards were announced at the MAX POWER expo at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and Moon Base Program Manager Carlos García-Galán. The biggest award is a 10-year contract for lunar delivery services, worth up to 10 billion dollars, shared by eight companies. The awards also cover a rover that will map water ice at the lunar south pole.
The NASA Moon Base contract for delivery services, known as CLPS 2, covers eight companies: Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, iSpace US, Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman, SpaceX and Voyager Technologies. The contract runs for 10 years and is worth up to 10 billion dollars, and it will carry payloads to the Moon for the agency. The first version of the contract, CLPS 1, was raised from 2.6 billion to 4.2 billion dollars, and it runs through November 2028, with deliveries through November 2033.
NASA Moon Base plans also include the PROMISE rover, a six-wheeled, nuclear-powered vehicle that will explore the lunar south pole. PROMISE stands for Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration, and it will carry a drill that can reach one metre below the surface, along with spectrometers, temperature and radiation sensors, and cameras. The rover is aimed at a launch in late 2028, with an 18-month mission to map water ice and test the ground where astronauts may one day work.
NASA Moon Base landers and the Blue Origin award
The NASA Moon Base awards include a task order for Blue Origin worth 94 million dollars, with an option worth 140 million dollars more, for its Mark 1 lander. The award expands a task order from May 2026 for two lunar terrain vehicles, and it will see Blue Origin carry cargo to the Moon. The company is one of the eight firms on the CLPS 2 contract, and it is also working on the New Glenn rocket, which will launch some of the new missions. The other rockets named for the programme are the Terran R and the Falcon 9.
NASA Moon Base work also covers a set of six task orders worth about 1.3 billion dollars under the VADR programme, given to Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin and Impulse Space. The orders cover CAPSTONE 02, a follow-up to the CAPSTONE mission, MoonFall drones that will explore the lunar surface, and cislunar navigation, which will help spacecraft find their way between the Earth and the Moon. SpaceX will also run a cislunar communications demonstration on Starship in 2028, testing how to keep in touch with missions far from Earth.
NASA Moon Base power and the road ahead
The NASA Moon Base programme also includes a Mini-Communications and Solar Tower, which will provide power and communications for the lunar base. Honeybee Robotics will supply energy storage for the tower, and Redwire will supply the power systems. The tower is part of the infrastructure that the agency needs before astronauts can stay on the Moon for long periods. The Moon Base programme is the agency’s name for the effort to build a permanent presence on the Moon, and the awards announced on 7 November are the latest step in that plan.
NASA Moon Base officials said the awards will let the agency move faster, by using commercial companies to carry cargo and build the hardware it needs. The CLPS 2 contract gives the agency a pool of eight companies to call on, and the task orders let it pick the right firm for each job. The PROMISE rover will answer one of the key questions about the Moon, which is where the water ice is and how much of it there is. The rover will drill into the ground and test the ice, which could one day be turned into water, air and fuel.
The NASA Moon Base awards set the shape of the programme for the next decade, with the landers, the rover and the power tower all due to fly in the late 2020s. The first launches are expected on New Glenn, Terran R and Falcon 9, and the Starship demonstration will follow in 2028. The contracts run for 10 years, and the deliveries under the first CLPS contract run through November 2033. The programme will now move from announcements to hardware, and the next test comes when the first of the new landers leaves the ground.