NASA advances Moon Base plans with new lunar lander awards

NASA expanded its Moon Base effort on June 30 with another look at the lander, rover and science missions it is buying from private contractors for a lunar outpost planned near the Moon’s South Pole.

The latest awards follow NASA’s May 26 selection of four companies for the first contracts tied to the Moon Base program. The current round includes lunar rovers, landers and science payload delivery missions, and three companies, Astrobotic, Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines, will carry four new lunar missions in late 2028. In public remarks after the May 26 announcement, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman called the Moon Base “America’s and humanity’s first outpost on another celestial world.”

The Moon Base is designed as a partnership effort with commercial companies and other innovators, using a phased, iterative approach that starts with technology demonstrations, robotic missions and early experiments to prove out the systems needed for continuous human presence. The program is meant to support sustained human presence on the Moon, expand scientific discovery, advance commercial activity and prepare for Mars exploration.

The agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services model is the main buying mechanism. Through CLPS, NASA purchases lunar landing and surface operations services from American companies rather than building every mission in-house. That structure shifts much of the development and execution risk to contractors, while NASA keeps the scientific and operational requirements tied to the missions it wants on the lunar surface.

A 2025 NASA release set Firefly’s CLPS task order to continue through March 29, 2030, with its lander targeted for the Moon’s South Pole region in 2029. That award was Firefly’s fifth task order and its fourth lunar mission through CLPS.

On June 30, Isaacman and Moon Base program manager Carlos García-Galán will provide another update on upcoming awards.