NASA announced contracts with Blue Origin, Astrolab, Lunar Outpost and Firefly Aerospace to build and deliver hardware for its planned Moon Base program.
The agency said Phase 1 runs through 2029 and could include up to 25 missions, 21 lunar landings and about four metric tons of cargo delivered to the surface as it places initial transportation systems and mobility assets at the lunar South Pole.
"We can't force a lunar economy into existence," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said, describing the awards as a step toward a privately financed lunar presence.
Blue Origin received a $188 million task order plus a $280.4 million option to deliver NASA’s lunar terrain vehicles to the South Pole using its Mark 1 uncrewed lander, and the same lander will fly Moon Base I to the Shackleton Connecting Ridge no earlier than fall 2026.
Astrolab won a $219 million contract to supply its CLV-1 crewed rover, adapted from its FLEX architecture, while Lunar Outpost secured $220 million for its Pegasus autonomous terrain vehicle, derived from the Eagle platform.
Both vehicles are designed to exceed 9 mph and travel more than 124 miles (200 kilometres) over their operational lifetimes.
Firefly Aerospace will build the carrier spacecraft to take JPL's MoonFall drones to lunar orbit for independent landings about a mile apart; NASA did not disclose that contract's value.
NASA's Moon Base programme manager Carlos García-Galán said the MoonFall drones will map the surface at centimetre-scale, hunt for subsurface water ice and record the radiation environment while hopping to multiple sites and surviving long lunar nights.
NASA outlined Phase 2 (2029-2032) to scale deliveries to as much as 60 metric tons and add semi-permanent infrastructure, and Phase 3 (from 2032) to aim for sustained habitation with advanced rovers, surface nuclear power and up to 38 metric tons of cargo per year.
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Isaacman said funding will come from reconciliation legislation, fiscal-year 2026 appropriations and the fiscal-year 2027 presidential budget request and that the combined sums are sufficient for the agency's exploration goals.
NASA said additional Commercial Lunar Payload Services awards and selections under CLPS 2.0 will follow in the coming months.
