NASA Unveils First Blueprint for Permanent Moon Base, Ordering Landers, Rovers and Drones

At NASA's headquarters in Washington on Tuesday, the agency laid out its first concrete plan for a permanent base on the moon, and it came with purchase orders attached. NASA is already buying landers, rovers and drones for the outpost, and it published target dates for the first pieces of infrastructure.

The rover contracts were the most visible piece. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin will supply a pair of landers to carry moon buggies down to a site near the lunar south pole. NASA calls the vehicles lunar terrain vehicles, or LTVs, and two companies, Astrolab and Lunar Outpost, will build them. Each is designed to carry two astronauts and climb or descend slopes of 20 degrees. When no crew is on hand, a rover can drive itself, or someone on Earth can steer it remotely.

Firefly Aerospace will deliver the first drones. Carlos Garcia-Galan, NASA's moon base program executive, said they will help build a digital terrain map of different landing sites and prospect possible base locations. NASA says this hardware is meant to arrive before the first Artemis astronauts touch down, which could happen as early as 2028.

The announcement follows recent flight milestones. In April, the Artemis II crew of four flew around the moon, traveling deeper into space than the Apollo crews of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Artemis III, targeted for mid-2027, will have another crew practice docking the Orion capsule in Earth orbit with the lunar landers being developed by Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX. A landing by two astronauts could follow as soon as 2028.

The base itself is planned in phases. Moon Base I, targeted for no earlier than fall 2026, will use Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance lander to deliver equipment to the Shackleton Connecting Ridge. The payload includes stereo cameras for studying how thrusters interact with the lunar surface, and a laser retroreflective array that lets orbiting spacecraft fix their position more precisely using reflected laser light. The mission is meant to demonstrate capabilities that reduce risk for crewed landings in 2028.

The second phase, running from 2029 into the early 2030s, begins building permanent infrastructure, including a power grid. A mission in that period will deliver more than 1,100 pounds of cargo on Astrobotic's Griffin lander to help mature mobility systems that will inform future terrain vehicles. The third phase, expected sometime in the 2030s, would see specialized permanent habitats supporting astronauts for extended stays. Its anchor investigation will study lunar swirls and light spots on the surface to better understand how the surface evolves and how materials behave under extreme conditions.

These three missions are the first of more than a dozen to be announced this year, each intended to produce operational data and cut risk ahead of surface work by Artemis crews. A fourth mission, MoonFall, is targeted for 2028 and will send four drones to make short hops on the surface, surveying potential landing sites for astronauts. They will land independently and gather high-resolution imagery of hard-to-reach terrain over one lunar day, a full day-night cycle lasting about 29.5 Earth days. Garcia-Galan pictures a base spread over hundreds of square miles, its perimeter marked by drones stationed at the corners.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman called the Moon Base America's and humanity's first outpost on another celestial world. He said the goals include science, economic and technological gains, and preparation for a Mars expedition, and he thanked President Trump, Congress, industry and international partners. Garcia-Galan put the ambition simply: the aim is to be able to say the U.S. is permanently there and not giving it up. Watch for the additional missions NASA says it will announce later this year, and for the fall 2026 launch window for Moon Base I.