On November 7, 2026, at the MAX POWER aerospace expo at Kennedy Space Center, NASA announced a major expansion of its Moon Base program. The agency selected eight companies — Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, ispace-U.S., Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman Space Systems, SpaceX, and Voyager Technologies — for the CLPS 2 lunar delivery framework, a 10-year contract with a combined maximum value of $10 billion. NASA also increased the original CLPS 1.0 contract from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion. Additionally, NASA awarded approximately $1.3 billion in VADR task orders to Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin, and Impulse Space for orbital transfer vehicle demonstrations, including missions for the CAPSTONE 02 spacecraft and MoonFall drones. NASA also announced the
The awards are part of NASA's effort to establish a sustained human presence at the Moon's South Pole, consolidating multiple efforts into a streamlined Moon Base program. The agency is leveraging commercial partnerships to accelerate development of cargo landers, orbital transportation, surface infrastructure, and communications, while using proven Mars rover hardware to reduce cost and timeline for the PROMISE rover.
NASA announced at the MAX POWER expo on Nov 7, 2026 that it selected eight companies for the CLPS 2 lunar delivery framework worth up to $10 billion, and awarded roughly $1.3 billion in VADR launch and orbital transfer task orders to Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin, and Impulse Space.
NASA has selected two companies — SpaceX and Blue Origin — to develop human landing systems for the Moon, under the Artemis program's Human Landing System contracts.
SpaceX successfully caught the Starship booster to conclude Flight 15, as announced by SpaceX on their official account and shown in the linked video.
MEight companies, ten billion dollars, one Moon base. Outer Space Today posted on X that NASA just expanded its lunar plans in a big way.
CAnd for once the breaking-news post is accurate. NASA announced it at an aerospace expo at Kennedy Space Center.
MWalk me through the money. That headline number is doing a lot of work.
CEight companies picked for a new lunar delivery framework called CLPS 2. Up to ten billion dollars combined.
CBlue Origin, Firefly, Intuitive Machines, ispace-U.S., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, SpaceX and Voyager.
MUp to. Those two words are the whole story.
CFair. Aviation Week noted many of these are indefinite-delivery deals. Nobody is guaranteed a dollar.
MSo it's a hunting license, not a paycheck.
CIt's a pre-approved vendor list. NASA can order fast without a new competition every time. That's a feature!
MOr a way to announce a giant number for something that may buy much less.
CThere's real money too. NASA raised the original CLPS contract from two point six billion to four point two billion.
MAnd about one point three billion in separate launch and orbital transfer orders. Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin, Impulse Space.
CNow my favorite part. PROMISE, a nuclear-powered rover, built by JPL from spare Mars rover components.
MSpare parts. The most NASA sentence ever written.
CIt's smart! Proven hardware, lower cost, less schedule risk.
CBlue Origin gets a contract with base and option funding to land at the South Pole in late 2028.
MI like reuse. What I don't love is a ten-year framework wearing a Moon base costume.
CIt's more than a framework. Program manager Carlos García-Galán says they've "made incredible strides" in eight months.
MEight months of strides, and nothing new has touched the surface yet.
CCommercial is how you get cadence. Government one-offs gave us Apollo, then fifty years of nothing.
MApollo worked because someone owned the date. Here the accountability is spread across eight vendors.
CCompetition IS the accountability! Some fail, some fly. That's how you beat a bureaucracy.
MUnless the ones who fail take your schedule with them.
CThen you order from someone else. That's the whole point of a pool—
MFine. Grudging point. But I'll believe in the base when something is sitting at the South Pole.
CDeal. And notice the rides: New Glenn, Terran R, Falcon 9. Not one rocket carrying everything.
MWhich brings us to the landers. There's chatter online that NASA aims to put astronauts back on the Moon around 2028.
CThat's the date everybody wants.
MExcept NASA's own Moon Base plan lists 2028 to 2029 for initial surface missions, with that rover in late 2028. No astronaut landing date.
CSo the post stretched it.
MQuite a bit. Robots in 2028 is not necessarily boots on the Moon in 2028.
CWhat's true is the two-lander setup. Physics and Astronomy Zone posted that NASA picked SpaceX and Blue Origin for human landing systems.
MStarship on one side, Blue Moon on the other.
CAnd I'm rooting for Starship. Orbital refueling is hard, but if it works, it changes the cost of everything out there.
MIf. That's carrying a lot of weight in that sentence.
CSure, but a second lander is the insurance. That's the part NASA got right.
MAgreed on that one. Redundancy beats optimism.
CThen here's a wrinkle. Owen Gregorian shared an Ars Technica piece by Stephen Clark about a launch supply crunch.
MThe gist is the US military is trying to prop up commercial launch companies because SpaceX may wind down its Falcon rockets.
MI'd hold that loosely. It's the report's claim, and nothing official backs the Falcon wind-down yet.
CIf it's true, it's the most predictable story in space. Starship replaces Falcon, and everyone else scrambles.
MOr the Pentagon is nervous about depending on one company for almost everything.
CThat's called a monopoly you built by being good at your job.
MAnd that's called a single point of failure. Both can be true.
COkay, point taken. The answer is more rockets, not fewer SpaceX launches.
MWhich is exactly what NASA's eight-company list is betting on.
CA big bet with a very flexible receipt.