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NASA's Moon Base Plan Puts Robots First
Phase One runs through 2029, with more than twenty robotic landings before astronauts. No launch month is stated here.
Primary sources
NASA · agency · published standing page
NASA · agency · published 2026-08-04
Placeholder poster only. This 9:16 short is being produced separately and is not in this build.
Script
NASA calls the Moon Base humanity's first lunar outpost, where astronauts would live and work near the Moon's South Pole. Robots go first, then infrastructure, then astronauts. Phase One seeks reliable access. Robotic missions will explore the South Pole, test technology, and reduce risk before astronauts arrive. From now through 2029, that phase includes more than twenty robotic landings, with Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, and Voyager Lunar Systems. Blue Origin's Endurance, a Blue Moon Mark 1, will try to land on the Shackleton Connecting Ridge. The flight demonstrates precision landing, autonomous guidance, and cryogenic propulsion. SCALPSS, from Langley, films the rocket plume on the surface before, during, and after landing, so engineers can judge the effect on nearby equipment. A Goddard laser reflector is a tracking reference. VIPER will search permanently shadowed craters that scientists believe may hold water ice. The ice is not confirmed.
Claims
NASA calls the Moon Base humanity's first lunar outpost, where astronauts will live, work, and explore near the Moon's South Pole. It is built in phases: robotic missions first, then infrastructure, then astronauts.
Phase One focuses on reliable access. Robotic missions will explore the lunar South Pole, demonstrate technologies, and reduce risk before astronauts arrive.
Phase I, now through 2029, includes more than twenty robotic landings. Partners named on the cargo update are Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, and Voyager Lunar Systems.
Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark 1 lander Endurance will attempt a landing on the Shackleton Connecting Ridge while demonstrating precision landing, autonomous guidance, navigation, and control, and cryogenic propulsion.
SCALPSS, from Langley, will image the surface before, during, and after landing to study how the rocket plume interacts with it, including effects on nearby equipment. The Laser Retroreflector Array, from Goddard, is a precise tracking reference.
VIPER will search for and map water ice. Permanently shadowed craters are so cold they have stayed untouched by sunlight for billions of years. Scientists believe those pockets may contain resources. That is a belief and a search, not a confirmed find.