NASA lays out moon base plans with landers, buggies and drones at the top of the list

NASA is ordering landers, rovers, and drones for a moon base and awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to four U.S. companies. Blue Origin will provide two landers to deliver lunar terrain vehicles near the moon’s south pole, with the vehicles built by Astrolab and Lunar Outpost. Firefly Aerospace will deliver the first drones to the moon. The hardware is intended to arrive before the first Artemis astronauts land on the moon, planned as early as 2028. Artemis II flew four astronauts on a lunar flyaround, and Artemis III will practice docking Orion in orbit around Earth with crew landers from Blue Origin and SpaceX. A second phase beginning in 2029 will build permanent infrastructure such as a power grid, with extended habitats expected in the 2030s.

"NASA is already ordering landers, rovers and drones for a sprawling moon base, less than two months after the Artemis II's record-breaking lunar flyaround. The space agency outlined the first phase of its moon base plans on Tuesday, awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to four U.S. companies. All this hardware is ideally supposed to arrive before the first Artemis astronauts land on the moon, planned for as early as 2028."

"Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin will provide a pair of landers to deliver moon buggies to the lunar surface, at a spot near the moon's south pole. These so-called lunar terrain vehicles will be built by Astrolab and Lunar Outpost. Firefly Aerospace, which landed successfully on the moon last year, will deliver the first drones to the moon."

"For next year's Artemis III, another team of astronauts will practice docking NASA's Orion capsule in orbit around Earth with the lunar landers being developed for crews by Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX. NASA is targeting Artemis III for mid-2027, with a landing by two astronauts following as soon as 2028. The moon base's second phase, from 2029 into the early 2030s, will start building up the permanent infrastructure, including a power grid."

""Then we'll be able to say, 'Hey, we're permanently here and we're not giving it up,'" said NASA's moon base program executive Carlos Garcia-Galan. Garcia-Galan envisions a moon base sprawling over hundreds of square miles, with a perimeter marked by drones, dubbed MoonFall, stationed at the corners. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said these territory markers are meant to be respectfu"

Read at ABC7 Los Angeles