NASA's moon base plans include landers, buggies and drones for 2028 mission

May 26, 2026 / 6:27 PM EDT

/ CBS/AP

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NASA is already ordering landers, rovers and drones for a sprawling moon base, less than two months after the Artemis II's record-breaking lunar flyaround.The space agency outlined the first phase of its moon base plans on Tuesday, awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to four U.S. companies.Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin will provide a pair of landers to deliver moon buggies to the lunar surface, at a spot near the moon's south pole. These so-called lunar terrain vehicles will be built by Astrolab and Lunar Outpost. Firefly Aerospace, which landed successfully on the moon last year, will deliver the first drones to the moon.

This rendering shows Astrolab's CLV-1 rover on the lunar surface. NASA selected Astrolab as one of two providers of a crewed lunar rover for the Artemis program.