NASA has announced a new series of lunar missions to support its long-term plan to build a permanent human presence on the Moon.
The first three missions, called Moon Base I, Moon Base II, and Moon Base III, will focus on the Moon’s South Pole region and help prepare for a crewed Artemis landing planned for 2028.
According to NASA, these three missions are only the beginning. The agency says they are part of more than a dozen Moon Base missions expected to be announced this year. Each mission will carry important equipment, scientific instruments, or cargo that will help NASA better understand the lunar surface and prepare for future astronaut operations.
Moon Base I is expected to launch no earlier than fall 2026. It will use Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance lander to carry NASA payloads to the Moon. These include instruments designed to study how spacecraft thrusters interact with the lunar surface and equipment that can help orbiting spacecraft identify more accurate locations using reflected laser light.
Moon Base II is also planned for later this year. This mission will use Astrobotic’s Griffin lander to deliver more than 1,100 pounds of cargo to the Moon. One of its key payloads will be Astrolab’s FLIP rover, which will help NASA learn more about how future lunar terrain vehicles may operate on the Moon.
Moon Base III is also targeted for this year and will carry payloads for NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute. Its main payload, Lunar Vertex, will travel on Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C Trinity lunar lander. The mission will study lunar swirls, which are bright patches on the Moon’s surface, to improve scientists’ understanding of how the lunar surface changes over time and how materials behave in extreme space conditions.
NASA also shared updates on its future Moon rover plans. The agency has awarded $219 million to Astrolab and $220 million to Lunar Outpost to develop new lunar rovers. These vehicles are expected to play an important role in future Moon missions, giving astronauts more mobility as they explore the lunar surface.
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