NASA on Tuesday announced plans for three uncrewed missions to the moon later this year that will serve as early steps toward the goal of building a permanent base on the lunar surface.
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During these missions — all robotic flights — NASA aims to scout locations at the moon’s south pole, gather scientific data, test technologies and prepare for the return of its astronauts to the lunar surface.
“We are not jumping right into the glass dome moon base,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Tuesday in a news briefing. “We intend to take an iterative approach, sending a demand signal to industry for a lot of landers and rovers and tech demonstrations, and all the scientific payloads these missions can accommodate.”
The newly announced missions, known as Moon Base 1, Moon Base 2 and Moon Base 3, are all slated to launch by the end of this year. The first is scheduled for no earlier than this fall, Isaacman said.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is set to play a major role in that first mission. NASA awarded the company a contract to carry two science and technology payloads to the moon using its lunar lander.
“Moon Base 1 will be the first privately funded lunar lander mission in history,” Isaacman said.
For the Moon Base 2 mission, Isaacman said a lander built by the Pennsylvania-based company Astrobotic will transport more than 1,000 pounds of cargo and a moon rover to the lunar surface.
The Moon Base 3 mission is meant to be primarily scientific — the plan calls for the study of “lunar swirls,” which are unusual formations on the surface of the moon that mysteriously appear brighter than their surroundings. The mission will also deliver payloads from the European Space Agency and South Korea’s space agency, “demonstrating that the future of lunar exploration is an international effort,” Isaacman said.
All three newly announced flights are part of the first phase of NASA’s long-term plan to build a base on the moon. That initial phase is expected to last through 2029 and includes an aggressive lineup of uncrewed missions.
“Phase one, for example, will have 25 launches, 21 landings, and we’re planning to deliver about four metric tons of cargo to the surface of the moon,” Carlos Garcia-Galan, NASA’s moon base program manager, said during Tuesday’s briefing.
During the second phase, from 2029 to 2032, NASA plans to assemble semipermanent facilities to enable early habitation on the moon.
By the third phase, starting in 2032, the agency said it aims to achieve a sustained presence on the lunar surface. Garcia-Galan said that the moon base could cover “hundreds of square miles.” By that time, NASA officials said they envision regular rotations of crews coming and going from the moon, with continuous activity on the lunar surface.
NASA on Tuesday also announced several other major funding awards to private aerospace companies. Astrolab, which is based in California, and Lunar Outpost, located in Colorado, each won $220 million contracts to build moon rovers, also known as lunar terrain vehicles, that can operate autonomously and eventually be used by astronauts during stays on the lunar surface.
Additionally, Firefly Aerospace, headquartered in Texas, won a $75 million contract from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to build four drones that NASA plans to use to explore sites of interest at the lunar south pole. Firefly successfully put its Blue Ghost lander on the moon last year, where it operated for two weeks and conducted science experiments for NASA.
The agency’s moon base plans are meant to be executed in tandem with its Artemis return-to-the-moon program. Last month, the Artemis II mission sent four astronauts on a 10-day journey around Earth and the moon — NASA’s first moon-bound mission in more than 50 years.
The agency next aims to launch the Artemis III mission in 2027 to conduct technology demonstrations in low-Earth orbit with one or both of the lunar landers that Blue Origin and SpaceX are each developing. If that’s successful, NASA plans to launch the Artemis IV mission to land astronauts on the moon in 2028.
“For those waiting patiently, the grand return is close at hand, and we will not slow down,” Isaacman said.
