NASA hires three US firms for moon base landers
Nasa has chosen three additional companies to deploy robotic landers to the moon, aligning with its strategy to create a lunar base by the decade’s conclusion. The agency announced on Tuesday two awards to Astrobotic Technology Inc. totalling approximately $298 million, one for roughly $144 million to Firefly Aerospace Inc. and another for around $148 million to Intuitive Machines Inc. Nasa is also considering plans to send to the moon the Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration (Promise), a test version of the agency’s Mars rovers.
“We’ve got the hardware and this is exactly what we should be trying to do, to put wins on the board, getting a capability like Promise to the surface of the moon,” stated Nasa Administrator Jared Isaacman. Astrobotic is set to launch a lander to the moon this year or early 2027, featuring an updated iteration of the company’s Peregrine lander, which faced challenges during its mission in 2024. “They’re applying a lot of the lessons learned from the previous Peregrine build out, and we expect to see a spacecraft that has those additional capabilities,” stated Carlos García-Galán, NASA’s moon base program manager.
In early June, Voyager Technologies Inc. entered into an agreement to acquire Astrobotic for a total consideration of approximately $300 million. Intuitive Machines achieved a significant milestone in 2024 by becoming the first company to successfully land a commercial spacecraft intact on the moon’s surface. However, the lander experienced a tipping incident during its descent, which constrained the overall mission capabilities on the lunar surface. A second attempt by the company in March 2025 also experienced a flawed landing. That same month, Firefly achieved a significant milestone by successfully landing its first robotic spacecraft on the moon.
In March, Isaacman articulated the agency’s strategy to allocate over $20 billion in the forthcoming seven years to establish a lunar base for astronauts to inhabit and conduct operations. The framework involved the deployment of a fleet comprising landers, rovers, drones, power generators, and other essential hardware. The plan is integrated into Nasa’s Artemis program, which seeks to return humans to the moon. In April, the agency’s Artemis II mission successfully dispatched a crew of four astronauts on a lunar orbit, aimed at evaluating the hardware intended for future manned landings on the moon, projected to occur as early as 2028.
