NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and Moon Base program manager Carlos García-Galán held a virtual briefing on Tuesday, June 30, announcing a new round of lunar lander and rover contracts worth more than $627 million. Astrolab received $219 million to build a crewed lunar terrain vehicle capable of transporting astronauts at over 6 mph, while Lunar Outpost secured $220 million for its Pegasus rover featuring manual, autonomous, and teleoperated driving modes. Blue Origin was awarded $188 million — with a $280.4 million option — to deliver the rovers to the Moon's South Pole via its Blue Moon Mark 1 lander.
Three Moon Base missions are now planned for 2026: Moon Base I will deliver scientific instruments to the Shackleton Connecting Ridge, Moon Base II will bring Astrolab's FLIP rover via an Astrobotic Griffin lander, and Moon Base III will carry international payloads from ESA and South Korea. Looking to 2028, NASA's MoonFall mission will deploy four hopping survey drones across the surface — part of a base eventually designed to span "hundreds of square miles."
The crewed return to the lunar surface — the first since Apollo 17 in December 1972 — is targeted for Artemis IV in early 2028, marking a historic milestone in sustained human exploration of the Moon.