NASA Announces New Moon Missions Amid Permanent Base Push
NASA awarded hundreds of millions of dollars for landers, rovers and drones, setting up 25 launches and 21 landings through 2029.
- 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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The first vehicles and drones for the lunar base have already been ordered by NASA for the next phase of the Artemis program.
NASA’s moon base contracts (May 28, 2026)
On Thursday's show: We learn about some contracts NASA has awarded to Texas companies to take the next steps toward an eventual base on the moon. And we reflect on how Supreme Court decisions of recent years have gutted the Voting Rights Act.
Cape Canaveral. NASA is already ordering landing modules, scout vehicles and drones for a lunar base, less than two months after the Artemis II lunar overflight.
NASA lays out moon base plans with landers, buggies and drones
For next year's Artemis III, another team of astronauts will practise docking NASA's Orion capsule in orbit around Earth with the lunar landers being developed for crews by Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX
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