Nasa picks Blue Origin for first of three lunar missions to build moon base

Nasa announced plans on Tuesday for three uncrewed lunar missions this year that will begin construction of a $20 billion moon base. The agency chose Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin over Elon Musk's SpaceX to conduct the first mission. Nasa administrator Jared Isaacman made the announcement at a press conference in Washington DC.

Isaacman said the three missions scheduled for 2026 would be followed by "more than a dozen" additional missions in coming years to test systems and equipment. The successful Artemis II mission last month, which sent four astronauts around the moon for the first time since 1972, has given the project momentum. "People are looking up again, believing in big things again, and paying attention as America returns to the moon again, and this time to stay," Isaacman said.

Nasa will not jump straight to a finished moon base, Isaacman explained. Instead, the agency will take an iterative approach by sending multiple landers and rovers and equipment demonstrations to the lunar surface. "We are leveraging the Nasa playbook from the 1960s, figuring out what works and what doesn't in this epic science of survival, because the moon base is as beautiful as it is hostile," he said.

Blue Origin will conduct the first mission, called Moon Base One, as early as fall 2025. Nasa awarded the company $230.4 million to support each of its first two moon base missions, though Blue Origin will largely fund the operation itself. The mission will send Blue Origin's Endurance cargo lander, powered by cryogenic propellant, to the Shackleton de Gerlache Ridge area near the moon's south pole.

Blue Origin was selected because of its role in the broader Artemis program, Isaacman said. The company will use this mission to "demonstrate critical capabilities that reduce risk for the human landing system missions." Both Blue Origin and SpaceX are competing to provide crew landers for future Artemis missions, including the planned 2028 return of humans to the moon on Artemis IV. Nasa will evaluate both the SpaceX Starship Human Landing System and Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander during the Artemis III test mission in lower Earth orbit next year, then make a decision.

Blue Origin faced a recent setback when a payload from the third flight of its New Glenn heavy-lift rocket ended up in the wrong orbit, but the Federal Aviation Administration cleared the company to return to flight last week. Both Blue Origin and SpaceX have built large new facilities at or near Kennedy Space Center to support crewed and cargo missions with Nasa.

Nasa also announced smaller contracts with other private companies involved in moon-to-Mars projects. These include Lunar Outpost, which has developed lunar rovers, and Firefly Aerospace, which in March last year became the first private operator to successfully land on the moon with its Blue Ghost lander.

A new Nasa website launched Wednesday outlines the agency's "blueprint for an enduring lunar presence." The site sets a timeframe between 2029 and 2032 for establishing a moon base with "operating capability." A "semi-permanent presence" will follow in 2032 or beyond.

The moon base project is part of Donald Trump's national space policy, which directs Nasa to accelerate the Artemis program, achieve the next human moon landing ahead of China, establish a permanently habitable lunar base, and develop a nuclear space reactor. Nasa says partnerships with private operators can significantly reduce costs to taxpayers while creating a thriving space economy and thousands of new jobs.

Isaacman said the world took notice during Artemis II. He hopes the moon base plans and other lunar projects will inspire a "golden age of exploration." When asked why Nasa sends astronauts into the harsh and dangerous environment of space at great cost, he said: "We go for the technology we will pioneer to get there, the science, and all that we will learn that will make life better here on Earth, to advance humankind on this great adventure, to inspire the next generation to do it better than we can, and, to be very clear, to master the skills for where we will inevitably go next."