NASA Opens $10B Moon Base Contest to 8 Firms, Led by SpaceX, Blue Origin

NASA announced a new lunar delivery framework Saturday with a combined maximum value of $10 billion over 10 years, open to eight companies competing to build out an American moon base.

The eligible firms are SpaceX, Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, iSpace US, Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman Space Systems and Voyager Technologies. The figure is a ceiling for future task orders, not money already awarded.

"We are building the Moon Base mission by mission," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said at the MAX POWER aerospace expo and air show at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA also raised the ceiling on its existing Commercial Lunar Payload Services contract from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion to fund the first phase.

Blue Origin won a $94 million base contract, with $140 million more available through a performance-based option, to deliver the nuclear-powered PROMISE rover to the lunar south pole. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is building the six-wheeled rover from spare parts and test models left over from the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers, which NASA says will cut costs. Launch is targeted for late 2028 on Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark 1 lander, for an 18-month mission.

Six transportation task orders worth about $1.3 billion combined went to Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin and Impulse Space. SpaceX received a separate demonstration under an existing contract: in 2028 it will use Starship to deploy communications satellites between Earth and the Moon. Honeybee Robotics, Redwire and Yank Technologies got awards for parts of a planned lunar power and communications tower.

NASA says commercial partners will deliver equipment before astronauts arrive, and it hopes lunar operations become the foundation for future crewed Mars missions.