NASA launches $10 billion lunar delivery competition, adding SpaceX, Blue Origin and six firms
NASA announced a new Commercial Lunar Payload Services framework worth up to $10 billion over ten years, inviting SpaceX, Blue Origin and six other companies to bid for contracts to deliver equipment and infrastructure to the Moon’s south pole.
NASA said on Saturday that SpaceX, Blue Origin and six additional aerospace firms are eligible to compete for contracts valued at up to $10 billion to support a permanent lunar base. The announcement was made at the MAX POWER aerospace expo and air show at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and expands the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
The CLPS framework sets a ceiling of $10 billion for future task orders over the next decade; the amount is not an advance award. Selected companies include Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, iSpace US, Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman Space Systems and Voyager Technologies, alongside SpaceX and Blue Origin.
"We are building the Moon Base mission by mission. When our astronauts return to the Moon, they will arrive with the first elements of the Moon Base already waiting for them on the surface," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement.
NASA also raised the maximum value of its existing CLPS contract from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion for the initial phase of the base. Blue Origin received a separate $94 million contract, with a $140 million performance option, to deliver the nuclear-powered PROMISE rover to the lunar south pole. The rover, built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory using spare components from the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers, will investigate surface and subsurface resources, including water-ice deposits.
The agency awarded transportation task orders worth about $1.3 billion to Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin and Impulse Space to test cargo-moving technologies, such as navigation systems and scouting drones. SpaceX was chosen for a demonstration under an existing lunar logistics contract to launch communications satellites aboard its Starship rocket in 2028, aimed at establishing a lunar communications network.
Additional awards went to Honeybee Robotics, Redwire and Yank Technologies for parts of a lunar power and communications tower that will combine solar and wireless power transfer. NASA said the contracts are intended to enable a sustained American presence on the Moon’s south pole and to lay groundwork for future crewed missions to Mars.