NASA readies Moon Base I to III missions by 2026

NASA Moon – After Artemis II’s April crewed flyby, NASA is lining up three Moon Base missions that aim to land payloads, test new rovers and landers, and study lunar surface conditions—while also keeping humans off the Moon until 2028.

The countdown to a return to the lunar surface is moving on two tracks at once—one that puts hardware down first, and another that holds off astronauts until later.

NASA has shared a preliminary schedule for its first three “Moon Base” missions. a plan built around testing rovers and landers and studying what the Moon is actually like at the sites where future lunar landings will happen. The agency recently completed its crewed Artemis II mission in April. but that lunar flyby was always only one step in a bigger effort to create a permanent presence.

Moon Base I is set to launch no earlier than fall 2026. Its job is straightforward: deliver payloads to the lunar surface. NASA says the mission will carry a Lunar Plume-Surface Studies instrument and cameras mounted on a Blue Origin Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance lander.

Later this year. Moon Base II is planned to take a different approach—sending a rover concept to the surface so designers can learn how to build for the terrain. It will use Astrobiotic’s Griffin lander to drop off Astrolab’s FLIP rover. part of an effort to help the startup design future lunar terrain vehicles.

Then. at some other point in 2026. Moon Base III will bring yet another lander and a new set of science objectives. NASA says it will use Intuitive Machine’s Nova-C Trinity lander to study “lunar swirls” and deliver payloads for the European Space Agency and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute.

Under the hood, NASA’s plan also shows the messy reality of building a lunar program through multiple contractors. The agency is using different agreements for delivery of payloads and for development of rovers and landers. which can make it harder to follow who is responsible for which piece of the landing stack.

Two contractors have been awarded work tied to lunar terrain vehicles. Astrolab and Lunar Outpost will each develop and build lunar terrain vehicles, with contract amounts of $219 million and $220 million, respectively. Blue Origin. meanwhile. received $118 million to deliver those rovers to the Moon. and it is also developing landers NASA will use for future missions.

This is not the first time NASA has been working through Blue Origin’s lander hardware. The agency completed testing of the Blue Origin lander it plans to use for Moon Base I. and it also shared that it has already received a second-generation prototype designed to carry crew for future testing and training.

What ties the Moon Base missions together is the timing—and the tension—between testing readiness and human return. NASA’s Moon Base rollout sits inside an updated schedule announced in February that delayed humans’ return to the lunar surface until 2028. Even before astronauts reach the Moon. the organization also plans to send drones to survey landing sites as part of its MoonFall mission.

In practice, the message is clear: before anyone walks on the surface again, NASA wants more than a flyby. It wants landers that can do the job, rovers that can handle the ground, and data about surface conditions that future crews will depend on—starting with missions that land payloads by 2026.

NASA Moon Base Artemis II Blue Origin Astrobiotic Astrolab Intuitive Machines lunar landers lunar rovers lunar swirls MoonFall lunar surface studies FLIP rover Griffin lander Nova-C Trinity Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance