NASA makes moves to dodge costly delays on its path to build a US$30 billion moon base

On Tuesday, NASA said it will pay at least half a billion dollars to three companies for four missions to deliver science instruments and other cargo to the moon. NASA via CNN Newsource

NASA’s moon base plans, conceptualized just a few months ago, are rolling out in earnest as the space agency maps out a strategy to deliver landers, rovers, buggies and other assets to the lunar surface.

On Tuesday, NASA said it will pay about $590 million dollars to three companies — Astrobotic, Firefly and Intuitive Machines — for four missions to deliver science instruments and other cargo to the moon. Astrobotic was the only vendor to be awarded two missions.

The agency also floated the possibility of repurposing a Mars rover, nicknamed Promise, for use on the moon.

These moves support a broader effort to use robotic vehicles to build up infrastructure that can be used by future human explorers on the moon.

The deals announced Tuesday are components of what Carlos García-Galán, NASA’s program executive for the moon base, called “Phase 1” of a plan to build out a permanent lunar settlement where astronauts will live and work. This initial phase is expected to last through 2028 and cost about $10 billion.

NASA announced other deals under the first phase of the program last month, including plans to rename three previously contracted missions as “Moon Base” specific. The agency also awarded additional contracts in May — worth over $1 billion altogether — for building buggies to drive on the lunar surface and deploying drones to the moon to help map a moon base location, perhaps as soon as 2028.

Phases 2 and 3 — which include plans to build the first pressurized habitats on the moon and install power generators — lay out NASA’s vision to continue building up its moon base in the 2030s. Eventually, NASA says it hopes astronauts will live and work in “semi-permanent” settlements.

It’s all part of the space agency’s plan to compete with China, whose space program has taken dramatic strides over the past decade. Lawmakers continually warn China’s efforts are threatening to eclipse the United States’ technological supremacy in space.

Navigating setbacks

Still, NASA is already facing clear headwinds.

Blue Origin, the space outfit founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, was set to deliver a prototype of its massive robotic lander, called Blue Moon, to the lunar south pole later this year. The south pole is highly coveted because it is believed to be home to stores of water ice, which can be converted to rocket fuel or drinking water.

But Blue Origin suffered a major setback in May when one of its New Glenn rockets abruptly exploded on the launchpad, destroying vital infrastructure that will take months to rebuild. It’s not clear how long the Blue Moon launch may be postponed as a result.

On Tuesday, García-Galán hinted that the Blue Moon lander may launch on a different vehicle if needed, saying NASA is “looking at other options” in case Blue Origin’s rocket and launchpad work doesn’t meet the agency’s timeline.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman made clear in a social media post shortly after the New Glenn incident that the space agency intends to be hands-on with its private-sector partners when hurdles arise.

“We have been saying for months at NASA that we are not going to sit on our hands and wait for the capabilities necessary to achieve the nation’s most pressing objectives,” Isaacman said. “We are going to take an active role alongside our partners, just as we did in the 1960s, to overcome setbacks, remove obstacles, and deliver the intended outcomes.”

US$30 billion questions

Blue Origin is far from NASA’s only partner, though its Blue Moon lander is substantially larger than most other robotic crafts and is expected to come in two versions — including one for carrying crew. SpaceX is also working to develop its Starship rocket for astronaut transportation to and from the moon, though the massive vehicle is not yet operational.

But NASA has a field of other players to tap for delivering cargo to the moon’s surface. Texas-based Firefly is so far the only company to carry out a wholly successful mission, landing its Blue Ghost vehicle near the lunar equator last year. Texas-based Intuitive Machines has also twice put landers near the south pole of the moon, though both times the landers tipped over.

NASA’s flurry of announcements and presentations this year about building a moon base are designed to encourage and spur more innovation from private-sector partners, García-Galán said.

“If you are in industry and wondering if you need to make that investment to increase your high bay, to increase the number of supply chain vendors that you have — this is the signal to say: We’re here to stay with this demand, and we’re building a moon base,” he told CNN during the Space Symposium conference in April.

In total, NASA said it expects the moon base to cost about $30 billion.

The moon base is integral to NASA’s Artemis program, which has so far already cost roughly $100 billion and to date has consisted of one uncrewed test mission and the historic crewed lunar flyby in April. Now, the space agency is now gearing up to send humans back to the moon’s surface for the first time in five decades and eventually build a settlement there. Both the US and China have plans to establish lunar outposts.

Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have bolstered efforts to fund lunar exploration by warning about competition with China.

And even as the Trump White House has recommended slashing NASA’s science budget by nearly 50%, the administration has sought to boost funding for the moon base in order to “establish U.S. dominance.”

But there’s a long way to go. The path to establishing a permanent lunar settlement is rife with technological, political and ethical questions.

Experts warn that there is currently a dramatic lack of infrastructure on the moon to support such a colony. Even the matter of keeping the correct time on the moon has not been solved for, as seconds tick by slightly faster on the moon than here on Earth.

And the funding landscape remains fuzzy. Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill gave about $10 billion to NASA to be doled out over six years, but much of those funds are earmarked for specific purposes. About $2.6 billion of that was slated to build a lunar space station, called Gateway, but NASA abruptly shelved those plans in March, saying the resources would be better spent building infrastructure on the surface rather than in lunar orbit.

By Jackie Wattles, CNN