NASA Announces New Developments for Permanent Lunar Base, Including Landers, Rovers, and Drones
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman had announced in recent months the intention to discontinue the development of the Lunar Gateway and instead focus on fixed structures on the surface of the Moon, with a permanent lunar base to be developed over the years as part of the Artemis program. With the Artemis II mission now archived, attention now turns to the next mission, Artemis III, currently scheduled around the middle of next year, with a Wet Dress Rehearsal for NASA’s SLS and the Orion capsule possibly being conducted by the end of this year.
In recent hours, the space agency held a new conference regarding the permanent lunar base and its supporting hardware, involving various U.S. companies. As we know, astronauts will be able to stay on the Moon for extended periods, much longer than what was experienced by astronauts on the Apollo missions and even longer than what we will see with the first crewed missions of the Artemis program. This will allow competition with China, which is developing (along with other international partners) the ILRS or International Lunar Research Station.
News Related to NASA's Lunar Base Development
According to statements made during the press conference, initially, different lunar landers will be used to carry various payloads to the surface of the satellite. In particular, we will see Blue Origin's Blue Moon MK1, Astrobotic's Griffin-1, and Intuitive Machines' Nova-C 3. NASA intends to land several landers and deploy useful equipment for astronauts, which could also operate without a crew. In total, there will be 21 different sites for the first phase of the construction of the permanent lunar base.
Carlos García-Galán (Moon Base Program Executive) announced that Blue Origin's Blue Moon MK1 will deliver Lunar Terrain Vehicles or LTVs to the Moon. They will be lightweight solutions (weighing around one ton) without a pressurized environment that can be either operated by astronauts or remotely. Specifically, these will include Astrolab FLEX and Lunar Outpost Pegasus (which is based on a modified version of Eagle).
Drones will also be part of the mission. Clearly, flying in a conventional manner on the Moon is not possible (as experienced by Ingenuity on Mars), which is why the Moonfall Project anticipates using propellers. The experience with the Martian drone will be useful for guidance technologies and will allow advancements achieving centimeter-scale precision for future moon landings. Moreover, the Moonfall drones will need to withstand the lunar night.
Interestingly, the Moonfall units can be positioned around the perimeter of the permanent lunar base, also serving as radio repeaters for communications and establishing a clear boundary recognized by other nations. The first model of Moonfall (developed by JPL) will be delivered via a Firefly Aerospace Elytra orbiter, which could transport up to four in the future (the first launch will not occur before 2028).
The evolution of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program was also announced with the arrival of CLPS 2.0. Applications are open until the end of June 2026, with some announcements possibly starting from this summer, or at the latest in the autumn.
In general, there will be an initial deployment of various payloads in the short term, moving on to energy infrastructure (based on solar panels as well as nuclear reactors ranging from 2 kW to 15 kW for the initial units, increasing to 20 kW, and the ability to have batteries with hundreds of kWh in different areas). Next, the focus will shift to logistics and transporting payloads and astronauts, while the final step will be the construction of habitable environments.
The pressurized rover Lunar Cruiser, developed by Toyota along with JAXA, will arrive in the second phase of development given transportation complexities and the need for a minimal infrastructure to fully utilize it. There are various uncertainties, and plans will need to be (almost) perfect to stay ahead of China and other nations. Eyes are on the crewed missions, particularly the first Moon landing of Artemis (with Artemis IV in 2028), but it will be even more ambitious to enable humans to live for weeks or months in an environment as inhospitable as the lunar surface.