NASA lays out moon base plans with landers, buggies and drones at the top of the list

Space NASA lays out moon base plans with landers, buggies and drones at the top of the list May 27, 20262:15 AM ET By  The Associated Press In this photo provided by NASA and captured by the Artemis II crew from lunar orbit, the moon eclipses the sun on April 6, 2026. NASA via AP hide caption toggle caption NASA via AP CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — 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. Short Wave NASA is practicing moonwalks. When are we going back? 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. Sponsor Message All this hardware is ideally supposed to arrive before the first Artemis astronauts land on the moon, planned for as early as 2028. During April's Artemis II mission, four astronauts flew around the moon, traveling deeper into space than the Apollo moon crews did during the late 1960s and early 1970s. For next year's Artemis III, another team of astronauts will practice docking NASA's Orion capsule in orbit around Earth with the lunar landers being developed for crews by Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX. Space After a whirlwind mission to the moon, astronauts are back home. Here's what's next NASA is targeting Artemis III for mid-2027, with a landing by two astronauts following as soon as 2028. The moon base's second phase, from 2029 into the early 2030s, will start building up the permanent infrastructure, including a power grid. As for when the base will be ready to support astronauts for extended periods in...