NASA Is Building a Moon Base, and the First Pieces Are Coming Together

NASA is moving ahead with plans for a durable Moon Base near the lunar South Pole, where future missions could support scientific research, technology development and eventually sustained human activity. A major part of the effort involves commercial partners Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines and Voyager Lunar Systems, which are developing landers expected to make deliveries to the Moon by 2028.

Phase I of NASA's Moon Base architecture plan is underway through 2029 and calls for more than 20 robotic landings, with each mission building on the ones before it by testing equipment, improving capabilities and validating components needed for later operations. Before astronauts reach the site, these robotic missions will carry scientific instruments to the Moon, gather information about the lunar environment and start putting infrastructure in place, while NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative helps establish a reliable supply chain between Earth and the Moon.

Blue Origin is putting its Blue Moon MK1 lander through integrated testing ahead of its first lunar delivery mission, called Endurance. MK1 is a single-launch cargo lander that can deliver up to three metric tons anywhere on the lunar surface using the seven-meter fairing of the New Glenn launch vehicle. The spacecraft has completed a thermal vacuum test at NASA's Johnson Space Center and communications checks with NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System and Deep Space Network; one of its remaining major tests involves loading cryogenic propellants before launch.

Firefly Aerospace, meanwhile, is preparing Blue Ghost Mission 2, which is planned to become the first American landing on the far side of the Moon. The spacecraft will sit atop Firefly's orbital vehicle Elytra, forming a 22-foot-tall system nearly three times as tall as the one used for Firefly's first lunar landing in 2025. Scientists say the far side's radio-quiet environment could help study lunar geology and the cosmic "Dark Ages," an early period of the universe when newly formed stars were just beginning to become visible. The mission will carry three NASA payloads for scientific research and to test technologies for future lunar habitats.