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NASA unveils $10 billion in moon base contracts, new lunar missions and the 'PROMISE' of a nuclear-powered rover

— NASA is pushing ahead with its plan to build a moon base for astronauts by 2032, with the agency unveiling up to $10 billion in contracts to launch and deliver cargo to the moon and other efforts on Saturday (Nov.

✦ Extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting•From 1 source•1 min read•Updated November 9, 2026, 1:00 PM UTC
Key points
  • NASA is also following through on a promise Isaacman made in June, when he proposed repurposing an engineering model of the Perseverance and Curiosity Mars rovers (essentially an Earth-based twin) as a mission-ready rover to send to the moon.
  • NASA also increased the ceiling of its existing CLPS contract from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion to support the agency's "Phase One" Moon Base objectives.
  • NASA also awarded contracts to Honeybee Robotics, Redwire and Yank Technologies to develop components for a lunar power and communications tower, known as miniCAST.

NASA awarded Blue Origin a $94 million base contract, with an additional $140 million option period based on performance, to deliver PROMISE to the lunar surface aboard its Blue Moon Mark 1 lander.

Additional details
  • The contracts for the 10-year CLPS 2 architecture carry a combined maximum value of $10 billion, rather than $10 billion in immediately awarded missions.
  • "Under the current CLPS contract, it's all all or nothing, which might be fine if you're only doing one or two of those [missions] per year," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told Space.com during a press conference on Saturday.
  • The missions will demonstrate commercial launch and orbital transportation capabilities, including cargo transfers between Earth and lunar orbits, navigation tests with the CAPSTONE 2 spacecraft and lunar scouting with "MoonFall" drones.
  • Under a separate lunar logistics contract, NASA selected SpaceX to launch communications satellites aboard its Starship megarocket in 2028, helping to establish a future lunar communications network with spacecraft similar to the company's Starlink spacecraft.
  • The announcements mark another step in NASA's effort to establish infrastructure on the moon before Artemis astronauts return to its surface, including a rover and other cargo and research elements.

How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →

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Space.comNovember 9, 2026, 1:00 PM UTC →

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