NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman declared, We are building the Moon Base mission by mission.
On Saturday, the agency announced a major expansion of its lunar ambitions, awarding contracts and selecting companies for a $10 billion Commercial Lunar Payload Services 2 (CLPS 2) initiative to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon.
The announcements, made at the MAX POWER expo at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, encompass a suite of awards. They will advance commercial robotic deliveries, a new nuclear-powered rover, and launch services. The goal is to have the first elements of a Moon Base waiting on the lunar surface for astronauts’ return.
$10B Contract to Compete for Lunar Deliveries
Under the CLPS 2 framework, NASA has selected eight companies to provide lunar delivery services. They are: Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, iSpace US, Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman Space Systems, SpaceX, and Voyager Technologies.
Voyager has been selected for @NASA CLPS 2 contract, making it eligible to compete for future lunar missions through 2036 under a $10 billion base ceiling. The selection expands its role in the Moon Base Program as Griffin-1 prepares for launch to the lunar South Pole. Learn… pic.twitter.com/PelRrYexYP
The contract is a 10-year master agreement. Its maximum value is $10 billion. It is a multiple-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. This means these companies will compete for future task orders. No single company has been awarded the full $10 billion amount.
The companies will manage, build, and operate landers. They will transport NASA science, technology, and infrastructure payloads to the Moon. Firefly Aerospace highlighted its successful Blue Ghost Mission 1 in March 2025 as proof of its capability. Blue Ghost Mission 1 proved Firefly can deliver on the Moon,
said Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. Now CLPS 2 gives us the opportunity to do it again and again at greater scale.
More momentum for the Moon Base! NASA has awarded six new launch and in-space transportation task orders to American companies, advancing the capabilities for future missions supporting Moon Base such as CAPSTONE 02, LCRNS, and MoonFall.
Separately, NASA increased the value of its existing CLPS 1.0 contract. It went from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion. This supports the initial phase of the Moon Base program. The original contract will remain in place through November 2028. An additional five-year period will complete deliveries through November 2033.
Blue Origin Will Deliver the Nuclear-Powered PROMISE Rover
A key part of the announcement was the unveiling of PROMISE. It is the Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration.
This is a nuclear-powered lunar rover. The six-wheeled rover is designed to operate through the long lunar nights. It can also work in permanently shadowed regions. These areas are thought to contain water ice. That is a crucial resource for a sustained human presence.
New awards. New mission updates. More progress toward a Moon Base. We're advancing commercial lunar deliveries, a nuclear-powered rover, launch and orbital transfer services, and infrastructure to support a sustained human presence on the Moon: https://t.co/Yt7oqpvLk5
Blue Origin has been selected to deliver PROMISE to the lunar South Pole. It will use its Mark 1 lander. The company received a $94 million base contract for the mission. An additional $140 million is available through a performance-based option. The mission is scheduled for late 2028. It will last for 18 months. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will build the rover. It will use spare parts and engineering test models from the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers. This method will reduce costs and speed up development.
Delivering the necessary infrastructure also requires a transportation network. NASA awarded six task orders. They are collectively worth approximately $1.3 billion. The awards went to Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin, and Impulse Space. They are under the Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) contract. These awards will fund missions to test technologies. The tests are for moving cargo between Earth and the Moon. The technologies include GPS systems and robotic drones.
Impulse Space, the in-space mobility company, announced it received two of these task orders. NASA’s Moon Base is exactly the type of sustained in-space logistics challenge that Impulse was founded to solve,
the company said in a statement. This award is one of the most important achievements of my career.
A Debate Over the Lunar South Pole
While NASA’s strategy focuses on the Moon’s South Pole, some experts have raised concerns. The south polar regions is really very hard to work in,
said Jeff Foust in a report for The Space Review. You are setting yourself up for some unnecessary challenges.
He noted the risks and uncertainty about the water ice thought to be there.
Ad lunam Impulse! 🚀 We are proud to announce that @NASA has awarded Impulse two missions as part of its Moon Base program, an ambitious effort to establish humanity’s first permanent lunar outpost. For decades, the Moon has been a place we’ve visited. Now, Impulse is… pic.twitter.com/K2dym6wdJS
Looking ahead, SpaceX has a task order. It is to launch communications satellites to cislunar space in 2028. The agency continues to build the Moon Base mission by mission.
The aim is to establish a permanent outpost. It will serve as a foundation for future deep space missions, including those to Mars.
As Carlos García-Galán, manager of the Moon Base Program at NASA, put it, In the eight months since Ignition, we’ve made incredible strides in accomplishing the near impossible: establishing a permanent outpost on the lunar surface.
Earlier coverage: NASA Outlines Revised Artemis Moon Landing Strategy for 2028
NASA is moving forward with PROMISE, a nuclear-powered lunar rover that will build on decades of Mars rover innovation to explore the Moon's South Pole region, advance lunar science and discovery, and support Moon Base objectives. NASA has selected @blueorigin to deliver PROMISE…
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Next stop: the Moon. 🚀 We’re partnering with @GoToImpulse on a lunar mission for @NASAMoonBase ! Terran R will launch Helios and lander vehicles to orbit for the first leg of the journey towards humanity’s first permanent lunar outpost. Learn more about the mission:… pic.twitter.com/jydkpvtEjb
LIVE: @NASAAdmin and agency leaders are sharing our latest updates on the Moon Base, humanity's first lunar outpost. https://t.co/UN6JuBhFcr
