NASA announced Saturday that eight aerospace companies, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, are now eligible to compete for as much as $10 billion in contracts to help build a permanent base on the moon.
The announcement came at the MAX POWER aerospace expo and air show at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where NASA laid out an expanded version of its commercial lunar program. The effort brings together private companies to deliver scientific equipment, technology and infrastructure to the moon’s south pole.
The new framework, called Commercial Lunar Payload Services, carries a maximum combined value of $10 billion over 10 years. NASA emphasized that figure is a ceiling for future task orders, not money already handed out to the companies involved.
Along with SpaceX and Blue Origin, NASA named Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, iSpace US, Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman Space Systems and Voyager Technologies as eligible to compete for upcoming lunar delivery missions.
“We are building the Moon Base mission by mission,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement. “When our astronauts return to the Moon, they will arrive with the first elements of the Moon Base already waiting for them on the surface.”
NASA also raised the maximum value of its existing CLPS contract from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion to fund the early phase of the Moon base plans.
Blue Origin’s Rover Deal
Separately, Blue Origin won a $94 million base contract to deliver a nuclear-powered rover, named PROMISE, to the lunar south pole, with up to $140 million more available if performance targets are met.
The six-wheeled rover — formally the “Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration” — will study the lunar surface and subsurface, including areas thought to contain water ice that could eventually support astronauts living on the moon.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will build the rover using spare flight components and engineering test models originally built for the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers, a strategy NASA says will hold down development costs.
Blue Origin plans to deliver the rover using its Mark 1 lunar lander, with NASA targeting a late-2028 launch for an 18-month mission.
More Contracts for Cargo and Communications
NASA also awarded six transportation task orders worth roughly $1.3 billion combined to Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin and Impulse Space. Those missions will test technology for moving cargo between Earth and the moon, including navigation systems and robotic drones meant to scout landing sites.
SpaceX received a separate assignment under an existing lunar logistics contract to launch communications satellites aboard its Starship rocket into the region between Earth and the moon in 2028. That demonstration is meant to help NASA build out communications links between astronauts, mission control and future lunar infrastructure.
NASA additionally announced awards to Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company, along with Redwire and Yank Technologies, for components of a planned lunar power and communications tower that would combine solar power with wireless power transfer.
NASA says the combined projects are meant to establish a lasting American presence at the moon’s south pole, with commercial partners delivering equipment and infrastructure ahead of astronaut arrivals. The agency has said it ultimately hopes its lunar operations will lay the groundwork for future crewed missions to Mars.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login