![NASA Moon Base 2026: The $590M Commercial Bet](https://cdn.slatesource.com/d/a/9/da9fb4fe-4af4-45ba-add1-3255d1a2e694.webp) # NASA Moon Base 2026: The $590M Commercial Bet - [Made in Slatesource](https://slatesource.com/@steph/nasa-moon-base-2026-the-590m-commercial-bet) - By [Steph](https://slatesource.com/@steph) - Created on Aug 3, 2026 MOMENT July 2026. NASA quietly signed three contracts. The $590M Commercial Bet Total contract value $590 million across 3 companies Companies selected Astrobotic, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines Missions funded 4 lunar surface landings, all in 2028 Astrobotic award $297.9 million (two missions, largest single award) Firefly award $144.2 million (one mission) Intuitive Machines award $148.3 million (one mission) Annual cadence goal 10 robotic Moon landings per year from 2027 **17** commercial lunar deliveries now locked in under CLPS What the four 2028 missions will do 0% \- Every lander carries the same three instruments: a Laser Retroreflector Array for precision navigation, a dust sensor to study landing plumes, and a radiation mapper. \- The Laser Retroreflector Array is a passive cookie-sized dome of quartz prisms. It reflects laser beams from orbiters to fix their position. No power needed, ever. \- Astrobotic's two missions will use updated Peregrine landers, the same design that attempted the first US soft landing in 50 years in January 2024. \- Firefly's Griffin lander previously carried a NASA MAPP rover in 2025 and has a larger payload bay than Peregrine, suited to heavier science packages. \- Intuitive Machines will use a variant of the Odysseus lander that made the first US commercial soft landing on the Moon, near the south pole, in February 2024. \- All four landers target the south polar region, where water ice in permanently shadowed craters could supply future crews with oxygen, water and rocket fuel. ## Why the SouthSouth PolePole All fourfour 20282028 missionsmissions are targetingtargeting the lunarlunar southsouth polarpolar regionregion, a stripstrip of terrainterrain unlikeunlike anywhereanywhere elseelse in the solarsolar systemsystem. CratersCraters likelike ShackletonShackleton and NobileNobile are permanentlypermanently shadowedshadowed: sunlightsunlight nevernever reachesreaches their floorsfloors. TemperaturesTemperatures sitsit at minusminus 170170 CelsiusCelsius year-roundyear-round, and waterwater iceice depositeddeposited therethere billionsbillions of yearsyears agoago has nevernever evaporatedevaporated. NASA'sNASA's LCROSSLCROSS impactorimpactor confirmedconfirmed waterwater in 20092009. SOFIASOFIA confirmedconfirmed it on sunlitsunlit slopesslopes in 20202020. The iceice is realreal. FutureFuture crewscrews couldcould splitsplit it into hydrogenhydrogen and oxygenoxygen for rocketrocket fuelfuel and breathablebreathable airair. That is why everyevery missionmission goesgoes southsouth. ![Gallery image 1](https://cdn.slatesource.com/6/5/b/65bc6fdc-da9f-421a-bebd-705cb45f0893.webp) ![Gallery image 2](https://cdn.slatesource.com/4/b/f/4bf903cb-1dee-4717-a366-316d81535926.webp) 1 / 2 > These new awards demonstrate our commitment to accelerating our effort to build a long-term presence on the lunar surface. One bonus in the contract announcement: NASA is considering repurposing PROMISE, an engineering development model of a Mars rover, and sending it to the Moon. It would be the first Mars-designed rover to operate on the lunar surface. No commitment yet, but the option is on the table. Each Laser Retroreflector Array lander places will gradually form a network of permanent location markers on the Moon, the same way GPS ground stations work on Earth. Once enough are placed, future landers and rovers can fix their position to within centimetres without relying on Earth-based tracking at all. [NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services: the full programme overview](https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/clps?utm_source=slatesource)