New Delhi: In a press conference, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, acting associate administrator of Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate,
Lori Glaze, and the programme executive for the Moon Base, Carlos Garcia-Galan announced plans to accelerate planned lunar exploration missions towards the establishment of a sustained human presence on the lunar surface. Note that the terminology used was now simply the Moon Base, and not the Artemis Basecamp. The announcements included new contracts for deploying Moon Buggies meant to be used by crews, as well as a series of uncrewed commercial landers. NASA also announced the target launch timeframes for the initial batch of Moon Base infrastructure.
The Moon Base I mission will see Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander, dubbed ‘Endurance’ delivering surface payloads, headed to the Shackleton Connecting Ridge on the crater at the lunar south pole. The Moon Base II mission will deliver over 500 kg of cargo using Astrobotic’s Griffin Lander, along with Astrolab’s FLIP rover, to test mobility systems for future lunar terrain vehicle operations. The Moon Base III mission will see the Nova-C lander by Intuitive Machines, dubbed Trinity, reach the lunar surface. This is an international mission with payloads from USA, Europe and Korea. NASA plans to launch all of these missions by the end of 2026.
Humanity’s first extra-terrestrial outpost
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said, “The Moon Base will be America’s and humanity’s first outpost on another celestial world. Every mission, crewed and uncrewed, will be a learning opportunity as we return to the lunar surface, build the infrastructure to stay, and master the skills required to live and operate in one of the most demanding and dangerous environments imaginable. We will go for the science, for all we stand to gain from an economic and technological perspective, for the innovations that will make life better here on Earth, and to prepare for where we will inevitably go next. We are grateful for President Trump’s leadership, the bipartisan commitment from Congress, our industry and international partners, and the dedicated NASA workforce whose expertise enables us to achieve the near-impossible.”
NASA has awarded Astrolab with a $219 million and Lunar Outpost with a $220 million contract to deliver the first Lunar Terrain Vehicles. Astrolab’s Crewed Lunar Vehicle (CLV-1) is adapted from the FLEX platform developed by the company. Lunar Outpost’s Pegasus is a lighter, mission-ready version of the Eagle rover, developed specifically to meet the updated LTV requirements by NASA. NASA plans to deploy multiple LTVs early in the development of the Moon base to accelerate technology demonstrations and to reduce operational risk for the first Artemis astronauts on the lunar surface.
MoonFall Hopper Drones
NASA also plans to dispatch the MoonFall mission through a Firefly Aerospace lander. The four hopper drones will survey the potential landing sites for Artemis astronauts. Each of the four drones will land on the lunar surface independently, and gather high-resolution imagery from hard-to-reach terrain over the course of a single day. Each drone will be equipped with a survive-the-night payload that will continue to operate for several months. NASA has also opened up new task orders for additional commercial missions to the lunar surface.
