NASA Opens $10 Billion Moon-Delivery Competition for Eight Companies

NASA has selected eight companies to compete for future cargo deliveries to the Moon under a new 10-year contracting framework worth up to $10 billion combined.

The companies are Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, ispace-U.S., Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman Space Systems, SpaceX and Voyager Technologies. Selection makes them eligible to compete for future missions. The $10 billion figure is a shared contract ceiling, not money already awarded to each company or a commitment to spend the full amount.

NASA announced the package Saturday at the MAX POWER aerospace expo and air show at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The work is intended to deliver science equipment, technology and infrastructure to support a sustained presence near the Moon's South Pole.

The agency also plans a nuclear-powered rover called PROMISE. Built using spare flight components and engineering test models from the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rover programs, the six-wheeled vehicle will study the lunar surface, subsurface and possible resources.

NASA is targeting a late-2028 launch and an 18-month rover mission. Blue Origin received a $94 million base contract to deliver PROMISE aboard its Mark 1 lander, with a further $140 million option dependent on performance.

Separately, NASA awarded six transportation task orders worth about $1.3 billion combined to Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin and Impulse Space. The agency also selected SpaceX for a 2028 demonstration deploying communications satellites to the region between Earth and the Moon.

The announcements are steps toward future lunar infrastructure, not evidence that a permanent Moon base is already operating.