NASA, moon base
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After much talk, NASA has begun laying the groundwork for a permanent American Moon base. This week, it handed out contracts to a handful of developers responsible for building key underlying hardware for the job.
Morning Overview on MSN
NASA just spent $1 billion on lunar hardware from Blue Origin, Firefly, Astrolab, and Lunar Outpost — locking in landers, rovers, and drones for a permanent Moon base
NASA awarded more than $900 million in contracts on May 26, 2026, to companies building the rovers and cargo landers needed to establish a permanent outpost near the Moon’s South Pole. The spending, which could exceed $1 billion once contract options are exercised,
NASA awarded two companies contracts on Tuesday to develop 21st-century versions of the moon buggies astronauts drove in the Apollo missions of the early 1970s. Lunar Outpost of Golden, Colo., and Venturi Astrolab of Hawthorne, Calif., will each receive about $220 million to build the vehicles.
Cedar Park-based Firefly Aerospace was chosen to deliver NASA's MoonFall drones. Houston's Intuitive Machines was not chosen to build a lunar vehicle.