Moon Base

NASA’s Moon Base program is the agency’s plan to build a permanent, crewed outpost near the Moon’s south pole. NASA announced it in March 2026, when Administrator Jared Isaacman paused the Gateway lunar space station and shifted the Artemis program toward the lunar surface. Instead of a station in orbit, the goal became a base on the ground: landers, rovers, power systems and eventually habitats near the south pole, where permanently shadowed craters are thought to hold water ice.

NASA has divided the work into three phases. Phase 1, running through about 2029, is about learning to get to the surface reliably. It includes more than twenty robotic landings, rovers, hopping drones and communications satellites. Phase 2, from 2029 to 2032, adds regular crewed missions along with surface solar arrays, radioisotope power units, communications towers and JAXA’s pressurized rover, the Lunar Cruiser. Phase 3, beginning around 2032, is when NASA expects to add habitats and start using lunar resources such as water ice.

NASA has given the first three robotic missions official Moon Base numbers. Moon Base I is Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander, named Endurance, aiming for the Shackleton Connecting Ridge. Moon Base II is Astrobotic’s Griffin lander, carrying Astrolab’s FLIP rover to the Nobile Crater region. Moon Base III is Intuitive Machines’ IM-3 mission, which sends the Trinity lander to the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl along with the Altus-1 relay satellite. Other Phase 1 missions include Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 2 to the far side, the VIPER rover, the two CAPSTONE 02 navigation spacecraft and JPL’s MoonFall drones. You’ll find each of them below.

Some parts of the program aren’t separate missions yet. NASA has selected two companies to build Lunar Terrain Vehicles, the open rovers astronauts will drive: Astrolab’s CLV-1 and Lunar Outpost’s Pegasus. Blue Origin cargo landers are scheduled to deliver them to the south pole in 2028. Most of Phase 1’s robotic landings will be bought through CLPS 2.0, the next round of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which went out for bids in May 2026. Smaller technology demonstrations, including three payloads from Northrop Grumman, will ride along on these flights.

Moon Base is closely tied to Artemis. Artemis IV, planned for 2028, is the first Artemis landing; NASA is still deciding whether SpaceX or Blue Origin will provide its lander. Artemis V is expected to follow and begin building the base, and from then on NASA plans crewed missions about every six months.