NASA announced its first blueprint for its moon base plans and revealed that the space agency is already ordering landers, rovers and drones for the lunar outpost.
During a moon base event Tuesday at NASAโs headquarters in Washington, the agency shared new contracts for lunar rovers for crew to drive while also sharing target launch timelines for the first infrastructure.
Jeff Bezosโ Blue Origin will provide a pair of landers to deliver moon buggies to the lunar surface at a spot near the moonโs south pole. The two new rovers, which NASA calls lunar terrain vehicles, or LTVs, will be built by Astrolab and Lunar Outpost.
The rovers will have the capability to drive up and down 20-degree slopes and the space to carry two astronauts. The rovers will be able to drive themselves if no astronauts are available or can be driven by drivers on Earth, controlling the wheel remotely.
It was also announced that Firefly Aerospace will deliver the first drones to the moon. The drones will help NASA โbuild a digital terrain map of different landing sites on the moon and prospect moon base sites,โ according to Carlos Garcia-Galan, NASAโs moon base program executive.
The hardware is supposed to arrive before the first Artemis astronauts land on the moon, planned for as early as 2028, according to the space agency.
During Aprilโs Artemis II mission, four astronauts flew around the moon, travelling deeper into space than the Apollo moon crews during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
For next yearโs Artemis III, another team of astronauts will practice docking NASAโs Orion capsule in orbit around Earth with the lunar landers being developed for crews by Blue Origin and Elon Muskโs SpaceX.
โThe Moon Base will be Americaโs and humanityโs first outpost on another celestial world,โ said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman. โEvery mission, crewed and uncrewed, will be a learning opportunity as we return to the lunar surface, build the infrastructure to stay, and master the skills required to live and operate in one of the most demanding and dangerous environments imaginable.โ
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โWe will go for the science, for all we stand to gain from an economic and technological perspective, for the innovations that will make life better here on Earth, and to prepare for where we will inevitably go next,โ Isaacman continued.
โWe are grateful for President Trumpโs leadership, the bipartisan commitment from Congress, our industry and international partners, and the dedicated NASA workforce whose expertise enables us to achieve the near-impossible.โ
NASA is targeting Artemis III for mid-2027, with a landing by two astronauts following as soon as 2028, according to the space agency.
Moon Base I is targeted for launch no earlier than fall 2026 and will use Blue Originโs Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance lander to deliver equipment.
The equipment will include stereo cameras for lunar plume-surface studies instrument to study how thrusters interact with the moonโs surface.
It will also use laser retroreflective array, which helps orbiting spacecraft determine a more precise location using the reflected laser light. The mission plans to land on the Shackleton Connecting Ridge to demonstrate capabilities that reduce risk for future crew landing missions in 2028.
The moon baseโs second phase, from 2029 into the early 2030s, will start building up the permanent infrastructure, including a power grid.
The mission will deliver more than 1,100 pounds of cargo on Astroboticโs Griffin lander to help mature mobility systems that inform future lunar terrain vehicles and operations.
As for when the base will be ready to support astronauts for extended periods in specialized permanent habitats, thatโs expected sometime in the 2030s, during the third phase.
Its anchor investigation will study lunar swirls and light spots on the surface of the moon to improve understanding of surface evolution and material behaviour under extreme conditions.
The three missions are the first of more than a dozen missions that will be announced this year, with each designed to generate operational data and reduce risk ahead of surface activities for the Artemis crew, according to NASA.
โThen weโll be able to say, โHey, weโre permanently here and weโre not giving it up,’โ said Garcia-Galan.
Garcia-Galan envisions a moon base sprawling over hundreds of square miles, with a perimeter marked by drones, dubbed MoonFall, stationed at the corners.
The MoonFall mission will send four drones to fly short hops on the lunar surface as they survey potential landing sites for Artemis astronauts, according to NASA.
MoonFall, with a launch targeted for 2028, will send drones that will independently land on the lunar surface and gather high-resolution imagery of hard-to-reach terrain over the course of a lunar day, which is a full day-night cycle on the moon that lasts approximately 29.5 Earth days.
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The goal of the moon base is to encourage a lunar economy while conducting scientific research and laying the foundation for a Mars expedition, Isaacman said.
โFor those waiting patiently, the grand return is close at hand and we will not slow down,โ Isaacman added. โWe are really just getting started.โ
โwith files from The Associated Press
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