NASA on Tuesday revealed it aims to announce over a dozen unmanned moon base space missions by the end of 2026, as part of its sweeping initiative to plant “humanity’s first outpost beyond Earth” on the lunar surface. Officials said the first three moon base missions are targeted to launch before the end of 2026. The first, touted as “the first privately funded lunar lander mission in history,” is expected to launch around the fall. Around a dozen others will be detailed in the coming months, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said during a press briefing. Officials hailed the recently completed Artemis II mission as the foundation that served as a “comprehensive test of NASA’s capabilities,” validating plans to build a base on the moon by proving it has the fundamentals necessary to proceed with space exploration. “People are looking up again, believing in big things again, and paying attention to the moon again,” Isaacman said, noting his ambition to “achieve the near impossible,” by establishing “an enduring presence on another celestial body.
“What we are embarking upon is extremely challenging,” he said. “We know so little from what is a combined 80 hours of lunar astronaut EVA time across the Apollo missions half a century ago. We are leveraging the NASA playbook from the 1960s, figuring out what works and what doesn’t in this epic science of survival, because the moon base is as beautiful as it is hostile.”
