NASA Commits Over $1.3 Billion to Build Out Its Moon Base Campaign

What is PROMISE?

NASA confirmed it will build PROMISE (Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration), a six-wheeled, nuclear-powered rover destined for the lunar South Pole. Nuclear power lets the rover operate through long lunar nights and inside permanently shadowed regions thought to harbor ice, a resource crucial for a sustained human presence.

The rover's instruments will include:

• A drill to extract regolith (lunar dust) from roughly 3 feet, or 1 meter, below the surface to characterize ice and other resources
• Spectrometers to analyze the chemical composition of surface material
• Temperature and radiation sensors
• Visible-light cameras

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California will manage the mission and assemble the rover largely from spare flight components and engineering test models built for the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers. Reusing proven hardware, software and operations approaches cuts cost and shortens the timeline. NASA has assessed the hardware's compatibility with the lunar environment and concluded it can tolerate conditions near the South Pole.

PROMISE will also demonstrate a next-generation, radiation-tolerant computing system called High Performance Spaceflight Computing, together with advanced autonomy sensors and algorithms. NASA targets a late 2028 launch and an 18-month mission. Blue Origin won a $94 million base contract, with a performance-based option worth an additional $140 million, to deliver the rover on its Mark 1 lander. The award extends a task order from May 2026 covering two lunar terrain vehicles.

How will the cargo get there?

NASA awarded six task orders under its VADR launch services contract (Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare) to Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin and Impulse Space. The orders, worth roughly $1.3 billion combined, cover three mission types.

The first reduces risks for long-term human spaceflight, verifying communications and navigation from Earth orbit to the Moon and demonstrating Orbital Transfer Vehicles (spacecraft that act like long-distance freight trucks, hauling large loads across space before landers make the final descent). This type will deliver the CAPSTONE 02 spacecraft to test maneuvers near the Moon. The second sends highly mobile MoonFall drones, built to scout terrain beyond a traditional rover's reach, to survey the South Pole before astronauts arrive. The third tests navigation in multiple cislunar orbits to show commercial orbital transfer that could increase the cargo future landers deliver.

VADR runs as a 10-year contract with a $5 billion ceiling, managed by the Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center. Some missions will fly on Blue Origin's New Glenn, Relativity Space's Terran R and SpaceX's Falcon 9, with in-space transport from Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Impulse Space and Quantum Space.

NASA also selected SpaceX for a Cislunar Communications Deployment Demonstration, launching communications satellites aboard a Starship to cislunar space in 2028 to inform future lunar networks.

What happens on the surface?

For a Mini-Communications and Solar Tower, or miniCAST, NASA awarded Honeybee Robotics for energy storage, Redwire for power generation and Yank Technologies for wireless power transfer. Engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will assemble and test the components before delivery; a separate solicitation for fully integrated power systems is expected in early 2027. NASA also plans a directed call under NextSTEP-3 B to close high-priority data gaps through small spacecraft, payloads or purchased commercial data.

The Moon Base, the agency says, is the foundation for the first crewed mission to Mars.