NASA taps three companies to build first outpost on the Moon

NASA announced Tuesday the selection of three companies to land four new missions on the Moon in late 2028 as part of the agency’s Moon Base Program, according to a NASA press release. Astrobotic, Firefly Aerospace, and Intuitive Machines will deliver NASA science payloads to the lunar surface as the agency builds the first outpost on another celestial world, NASA said.

The new awards total nearly $600 million, Lori Glaze, associate administrator for the Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in the release. She said the funding demonstrates NASA’s commitment to accelerating efforts to build a long-term presence on the lunar surface.

According to NASA, Astrobotic was awarded $297.9 million for two deliveries, while Firefly Aerospace received $144.2 million and Intuitive Machines received $148.3 million for one delivery each. The missions are part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative, which NASA described as a backbone of the Moon Base. Each company will use updated versions of previously flown lander designs to support NASA’s increased mission cadence.

Ryan Stephan, NASA’s Moon Base acting director of cargo landers, said in the release the agency is “building a proving ground for Moon Base operations,” adding that accelerating Moon mission ordering cadence and launch opportunities will allow NASA to move quickly to learn, iterate and improve.

NASA said it has now arranged 17 lunar surface deliveries across multiple providers and also announced new opportunities for American industry to contribute to the Moon Base. The agency is considering plans to send PROMISE, a Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration, to the Moon. According to the release, PROMISE is a hybrid engineering development version of the Mars Perseverance and Curiosity rovers, and NASA experts will define potential opportunities for it to characterize the lunar surface and subsurface and prospect for resources.

The agency also plans to solicit proposals in the coming months for lunar landers to deliver a power and avionics technology demonstration, another science manifest and a South Pole optical imager, NASA said. The release added that NASA will also seek proposals for Moon Base technology demonstrations and a lunar communication and navigation relay constellation to improve communications between Moon Base elements and Earth.

Each delivery will carry three NASA payloads, according to the release: a stereo camera system to study how landing engine exhaust affects lunar dust, a laser retroreflector array to help spacecraft determine their position or navigate to the lunar surface while helping build a network of permanent location markers on the Moon, and a radiation monitor to measure the lunar radiation environment.

Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said flying the same instruments on multiple landers will help the agency better understand potential landing hazards while building a global network of environmental data and location markers on the Moon, comparing it to having weather stations in different locations on Earth.

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