NASA taps rover teams and drone scouts to seed the Moon Base program

NASA selected Astrolab and Lunar Outpost to design rovers to support a planned Moon Base, to be delivered to the lunar surface by Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program; the rovers, intended for scouting and science and operable autonomously or via teleoperation, are expected to help Artemis astronauts by 2028. The awards total roughly $219–220 million for the rover contracts, with the first Moon Base mission renamed Moon Base 1 and related missions (Astrobotic Griffin-1 and Intuitive Machines IM-3) renamed Moon Base 2 and Moon Base 3. Separately, Firefly Aerospace will deliver MoonFall drones, launched from lunar orbit by a Firefly Elytra Dark spacecraft, to scout terrain, with a planned 2028 launch. Intuitive Machines was not selected in this initial round, though NASA says it may win later task orders. The program updates reflect NASA’s shift toward a more streamlined, affordable Moon Base rollout and the use of CLPS 2.0 for cargo deliveries.