NASA selects three additional robotic lander companies to build lunar base

Bloomberg reported on the 30th of last month (local time) that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has selected three additional companies to send robotic landers as part of its efforts to build a lunar base by the end of the 2020s.

NASA announced that it had signed contracts worth $298 million with Astrobotic Technology, $144 million with Firefly Aerospace, and $148 million with Intuitive Machines.

Astrobotic plans to send a lunar lander this year or early next year. This lander is an improved version of the Peregrine lander, which failed in its mission in 2024.

"Astrobotic is applying many of the lessons learned from previous Peregrine failures, and we expect to see a spacecraft with additional capabilities," said Carlos Garcia-Galán, NASA's lunar program director.

Intuitive Machines became the first company to fully land a commercial spacecraft on the lunar surface in 2024. However, because the lander overturned during descent, the overall mission performance on the lunar surface was limited. The second attempt in March 2025 also had problems with landing.

In the same month, Firefly launched its first robotic spacecraft and successfully landed on the moon.

The lunar lander plan is one of the lunar base construction projects in which NASA announced a three-phase plan with an investment of $20 billion over seven years in March.

This includes plans to bundle and launch landers, rovers, drones, generators, and other key hardware together.

This is also linked to NASA's Artemis program, which aims to send humans back to the moon.

NASA sent four astronauts to lunar orbit through the Artemis II mission last April.