NASA Awards Moon Base Logistics Contracts and Backs Nuclear Rover PROMISE
The agency expanded the CLPS program to $10 billion, commissioned orbital transfer missions, and funded Blue Origin to deliver a nuclear rover to the Moon's South Pole.
NASA announced a comprehensive package of contracts and mission milestones to build out its Moon Base infrastructure at the Moon’s South Pole, presenting the awards during the MAX POWER aerospace expo at Kennedy Space Center nasa.gov
NASAnasa.govOpen source ↗. The procurement strategy encompasses commercial cargo delivery services, orbital transfers, lunar communications, and the development of a nuclear-powered ground vehicle targeted for flight in late 2028.
To manage long-term surface delivery, the agency selected eight companies for the CLPS 2 (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) framework, a 10-year indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity master contract with a cumulative ceiling of $10 billion. Concurrently, NASA increased the budget of the original CLPS 1.0 contract from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion to support initial Phase One goals through 2028, with delivery extensions running through November 2033.
Nuclear Rover and Surface Operations
The development plan includes the six-wheeled PROMISE (Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration) vehicle, built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory using spare parts and engineering test models from the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars missions. Utilizing a nuclear power source, the rover is designed to navigate permanently shadowed craters and withstand prolonged lunar nights during an 18-month primary mission. Instrumentation includes a 1-meter regolith drill, surface spectrometers, environmental sensors, visible-light cameras, and the High Performance Spaceflight Computing system. Blue Origin secured a $94 million base contract with a $140 million performance-based option to land PROMISE using its Mark 1 lander.
Orbital Transfer and Launch Logistics
Under the Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) program, NASA issued six task orders valued at roughly $1.3 billion combined to Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin, and Impulse Space nasa.gov
NASAnasa.govOpen source ↗. Flight services will employ New Glenn, Terran R, and Falcon 9 launch vehicles, while orbital transfer vehicles from Firefly Aerospace, Impulse Space, Blue Origin, and Quantum Space will haul deep-space payloads. The upcoming flight profiles will deliver the CAPSTONE 02 spacecraft, test MoonFall scouting drones, and demonstrate cislunar cargo stages, alongside a SpaceX task order for communications deployment.
