NASA Announces New Moon Missions Amid Permanent Base Push
NASA said the contracts will speed up robotic scouting and rover development as it works toward a sustained human presence and Mars missions.
- On Tuesday, NASA announced nearly $1 billion in contracts to Blue Origin, Astrolab, Lunar Outpost, and Firefly Aerospace for lunar landers, terrain vehicles, and drones to support three uncrewed Moon Base missions launching by year's end.
- Following the successful Artemis II crewed lunar flyby in April, Isaacman shifted strategy from an orbiting Gateway station to direct surface infrastructure, consolidating resources and accelerating the Artemis schedule to reduce costs.
- Moon Base I will test Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance lander at Shackleton Connecting Ridge in fall 2026, while Moon Base II delivers more than 1,100 pounds of cargo including Astrolab's FLIP rover, and four MoonFall drones will survey terrain by 2028.
- Isaacman emphasized that space programs shouldn't be "perpetually funded by taxpayers," pointing to a $10 billion appropriation from the Working Families Tax Cut Act as NASA targets Artemis IV for the first crewed lunar landing in late 2028.
- The accelerated timeline reflects intensified competition with China, which plans crewed landings by 2030 and a research station by 2032; NASA intends crewed landings every six months by 2032, establishing routine crew rotations and sustained operations at the lunar south pole.
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318 Articles
The US space agency has unveiled new missions in its plans for a permanent base on the moon.
Daily Journal
NASA to start building $20 billion moon base this year
The moon base is "a central component of NASA's Artemis program" and is designed to establish the first sustained presence on the moon.
NASA Releases Sweeping Plans for Moon Base
NASA remains committed to developing a permanent presence on the Moon — space science budgets be damned. During a Tuesday event, the space agency announced a slew of new contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars for Moon base infrastructure including lunar rovers, as well as timeframes for upcoming development and exploration missions. Before the end of this year, NASA wants to send two of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar landers to the Moon’…
In the United States, the Nasa unveiled on Tuesday 26 May its plans for the installation of a permanent base on the Moon. An announcement that comes only six weeks after the success of the Artemis II mission, which sent a crew to tour the Moon for the first time in half a century.
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