NASA announces new lander contracts for Moon Base Phase One

Date:
Wed, 01 Jul 2026 21:38:25 +0000

Description:
In June 2026, NASA announced four new lunar landers as part of its Moon Base The post NASA announces new lander contracts for Moon Base Phase One appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .

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In June 2026, NASA announced four new lunar landers as part of its Moon Base program, further progressing toward creating a permanent human presence on
the Moon.



The agency plans to gradually build the essential infrastructure and ground assets to support long-term stays on the Moon, leading up to delivering
humans to the surface on future Artemis missions. This phased development of
a Moon Base is designed to enhance NASAs chances of success, mirroring the strategic approach used in the 1960s to land the first Americans on the Moon.

NASA announced its initial steps towards the Moon Base during its Ignition event in March 2026. Three landers, originally under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, were reclassified under NASAs Moon Base program. The three, Blue Origins Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance , Astrobotics Griffin-1, and Intuitive Machines Nova-C lander, will make up the first three Moon Base missions. Their missions will prove the required capabilities for landing on the lunar surface and are described as the backbone of the
program. Four new Moon deliveries. One shared goal. @NASA is increasing the cadence of lunar exploration with four newly announced commercial lunar
lander missions that will deliver NASA science and technology payloads to expand scientific discovery and help advance the capabilities pic.twitter.com/02hKTkDReg

NASA Moon Base (@NASAMoonBase) June 30, 2026



Early Phase One Lunar Operations

On June 30, 2026, NASA awarded four new Phase One lander contracts totaling nearly 600 million dollars. Targeting no earlier than 2028, Astrobotic received two awards for its Peregrine landers 2 and 3, which will build on
the learnings from Griffin-1. Intuitive Machines IM-4, a Nova-C class vehicle similar to its Moon Base-3 lander, was also selected for one of the
contracts. Finally, NASA selected Firefly Aerospace, the first commercial company in history to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon, to deliver a variant of its Blue Ghost-1 lander. Blue Ghost-1 landing on the lunar surface (Credit: Firefly Aerospace)

These new awards to our commercial partners, totaling nearly $600 million to land more missions on the Moon with science payloads, demonstrate our commitment to accelerating our effort to build a long-term presence on the lunar surface and give us more opportunity to develop the skills we need to prosper there, said NASAs associate administrator for the Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate, Lori Glaze. See Also Moon Base Updates Artemis Forum Section Artemis Archives Click here to Join L2

Each of these landers and future Phase One vehicles will carry the same core set of three scientific payloads to the surface for NASA. This includes the Stereo Camera for Lunar Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS), a set of four
cameras that will use a technique called stereo photogrammetry to create a 3D-view of the interaction between an engines exhaust plume and lunar dust.

Another payload, the Laser Retroreflective Array (LRA), reflects laser beams from lunar orbiters and landers to assist a spacecraft in determining its orbit and choosing a precise landing site. The last instrument for each
lander is the Linear Energy Transfer Spectrometer (LETS), designed to analyze the lunar surfaces radiation environment with an advanced silicon detector.

NASA also announced that it is exploring the possibility of repurposing an engineering development model that was built as a testbed for Mars rovers Curiosity and Perseverance to send to the lunar surface. The Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping and In-Situ Exploration (PROMISE) rover is being
assessed for its potential to characterize the lunar surface, subsurface and prospect for resources. We're thinking about it. pic.twitter.com/oQosHFPV10

NASA (@NASA) June 30, 2026



In addition to the lander and rover announcement, NASA revealed its plans to solicit proposals for more spacecraft that will deliver a power and avionics demonstration, scientific experiments, and an enhanced South Pole optical imager. Additionally, the agency is seeking a lunar communication and navigation relay constellation to enable improved communications between the Moon and Earth.

A crucial element of the Moon Base program is the Lunar Terrain Vehicle
(LTV), the cargo and crewed rover system that will provide surface mobility for astronauts. NASA announced two LTV concepts during its May 2026 program update. The first is Astrolabs Crewed Lunar Vehicle (CLV1), derived from the companys Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX) architecture.

A smaller prototype of FLEX, known as the FLEX Lunar Innovation Platform (FLIP), is scheduled to fly aboard Astrobotics Griffin1 lander, currently expected to launch in late 2026. Data returned from FLIP will inform Astrobotics decisionmaking for the larger LTV system, which is planned for deployment no earlier than 2028. CLV-1 has a mass of around 2,000 kg and can reach 6 miles per hour on level terrain. The rover can also be stowed in a compact configuration and, once deployed, will expand to approximately 4 m in length and 2.3 m in width. Hello, Griffin-1! Were pleased to have helped advance the Hazard Detection Lidar technology that will scan and analyze the Moons terrain in real-time to map and select the safest landing site.

Learn more: https://t.co/LvGS1JbOuO

Credit: @astrobotictechnology https://t.co/JZhdcwkly7 pic.twitter.com/GQLYCkQQ6M

NASA Technology (@NASA_Technology) June 17, 2026



Lunar Outpost will develop the second LTV, Pegasus , as a lightweight version of the companys Eagle rover. The Apollo-inspired LTV will be operational for up to a year and will be capable of manual, autonomous, and teleoperated driving with speeds up to nine miles per hour on the lunar surface. To
deliver the LTVs, NASA awarded Blue Origin $188 million to deliver at least one vehicle using its New Glenn rocket and Blue Moon Mark 1 lander.

In addition to LTVs and landers, NASA will also send four Jet Propulsion Laboratory-developed hopping drones to the Moon. These MoonFall drones will independently land on the lunar surface and gather high-resolution images of hard-to-reach terrain. After each drones last flight, the survive-the-night payload will continue to operate for several months, proving the technology for future missions. As well as being selected for a lunar lander contract, Firefly Aerospace will also deliver the MoonFall drones from Earth orbit to the Moon using its Elytra orbital transfer vehicle (OTV). Astrobotics Griffin-1 in clean room (Credit: Astrobotic)

With the agency already securing 17 lander contracts across multiple companies, NASAs intention is to prove essential hardware in preparation for later Moon Base missions. Future Phase One missions include the delivery of the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) payload, a rover capable of collecting and analyzing lunar samples, which the agency canceled and then reinstated in 2025.

Alongside the Moon Base program, NASA has committed to sending astronauts to the Moon to stay by early 2030 under its Artemis initiative. From Artemis IV onwards, the program is expected to utilize SpaceXs Human Landing System
(HLS) and Blue Origins Mark 2 to deliver astronauts and cargo to the Moon.
The agency intends to slowly build the lunar infrastructure, increasing the levels of difficulty to achieve the near-impossible.

(Lead image: Rendering of what NASAs Moon Base could look like. Credit:
NASA)



The post NASA announces new lander contracts for Moon Base Phase One appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .



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Link to news story: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/07/nasa-moon-base-update/


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