NASA Taps Eight Firms for $10 Billion Moon Deliveries, Plans Nuclear Rover

NASA said on Saturday that eight companies are eligible to compete for future Moon delivery missions under a new contract with a combined maximum value of $10 billion. The agency also confirmed it is moving ahead with PROMISE, a six-wheeled, nuclear-powered rover meant to explore the Moon's South Pole.

NASA announced the awards at the MAX POWER aerospace expo and air show at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They are part of what the agency calls its Moon Base effort, aimed at a sustained presence near the lunar South Pole with help from American industry.

The central numbers in NASA's announcement

• $10 billion: the combined maximum value of CLPS 2, a 10-year, multiple-award contract for Commercial Lunar Payload Services. NASA describes it as an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity master contract.
• Eight companies: Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, iSpace US, Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman Space Systems, SpaceX and Voyager Technologies. They can compete for future deliveries of NASA science, technology and infrastructure payloads.
• $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion: the increase NASA made to the value of the current CLPS 1.0 contract to support the first phase of Moon Base goals.
• $94 million plus up to $140 million: the base contract to Blue Origin to deliver PROMISE to the South Pole, plus a performance-based option period worth an additional $140 million.
• Late 2028 and 18 months: NASA's target launch window for PROMISE and the planned length of its mission.
• 3 feet (1 meter): roughly how far below the surface the rover's drill is meant to reach to characterize ice and other resources.

What PROMISE is designed to do

According to NASA, PROMISE stands for Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration. It is intended to characterize the surface and subsurface, assess resource potential, and provide data for choosing landing sites and planning future infrastructure.

The agency said the nuclear power source lets the rover work through long lunar nights and inside permanently shadowed regions thought to harbor ice. NASA called that ice crucial for a sustained human presence. Along with the drill, the rover will carry spectrometers for chemical analysis, temperature and radiation sensors, and visible-light cameras. It will also test a radiation-tolerant computing system called High Performance Spaceflight Computing, plus advanced autonomy sensors and algorithms.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California will manage the mission and build the rover. It will use spare flight components and engineering test models from the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers. NASA said proven hardware and Mars rover operating methods significantly cut cost and allow a shorter testing timeline. The agency said it assessed the hardware and found it can tolerate conditions near the Moon's South Pole.

Blue Origin will carry PROMISE on its Mark 1 lander as part of the Moon Base's first phase. NASA said this expands a task order awarded in May 2026 to deliver two lunar terrain vehicles.

Launch and transfer services

NASA also awarded six task orders under its Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare launch services contract. The recipients are Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin and Impulse Space, which will integrate and transport Moon Base cargo.

The agency compared orbital transfer vehicles to long-distance freight trucks that carry large loads across space, with lunar landers handling the final descent to the surface. NASA said the awards cover three mission types so it can fly demonstrations when they are ready. The first type aims to reduce risks for future long-term human spaceflight. Those missions will verify that communication and navigation methods work on the trip from Earth orbit to the Moon. They will also test whether a transfer vehicle can help deliver a commercial lander to a desired orbit.

Why it matters for the Moon Base plan

The announcements show how NASA intends to build its lunar program: commercial landers for cargo, a rover to scout resources, and transfer vehicles to move heavy loads. NASA says the goal is to put the first Moon Base elements on the surface before astronauts return.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the agency is "building the Moon Base mission by mission." Carlos García-Galán, manager of the Moon Base Program, said the agency has consolidated numerous efforts into a streamlined program and has awarded new contracts and partnerships to speed development.

For taxpayers, the figures are ceilings and task-order values announced by NASA, not final spending totals. The rover's reuse of Mars mission hardware is the agency's stated way of limiting cost and time.

What happens next

NASA is targeting late 2028 to launch PROMISE. The original CLPS contract remains in place through November 2028, with an additional five-year period to finish awarded lunar deliveries through November 2033. Under CLPS 2, the eight companies are eligible to compete for future delivery missions.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by NASA