NASA selected eight companies on November 7, 2026, as eligible to compete for future Moon-surface deliveries through Commercial Lunar Payload Services 2, or CLPS 2. The 10-year framework has a combined $10 billion ceiling for future orders, with companies competing for individual delivery assignments.
The announcement came at the MAX POWER aerospace expo and air show at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It forms part of NASA’s Moon Base effort, which aims to put equipment and infrastructure on the lunar surface to support sustained exploration.
What selection under CLPS 2 allows
NASA structured CLPS 2 as a multiple-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, usually shortened to IDIQ. In plain English, it establishes a group of providers that can compete for work through subsequent task orders. The $10 billion is the maximum combined value of that work across the framework.
The eligible companies are:
- Blue Origin
- Firefly Aerospace
- Intuitive Machines
- ispace-U.S.
- Lockheed Martin Space
- Northrop Grumman Space Systems
- SpaceX
- Voyager Technologies
The planned service spans managing, building, and operating landers to deliver NASA science instruments, technology, and infrastructure to the Moon. NASA wants the expanded commercial network to increase delivery frequency, supporting both scientific discovery and Moon Base development.
“We are building the Moon Base mission by mission,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.
CLPS 1.0 remains in place
The new framework will operate alongside the existing CLPS contract. NASA separately increased CLPS 1.0’s value from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion.
The original contract remains in place through November 2028. NASA also allows five additional years, through November 2033, to complete deliveries already awarded under it. That gives the earlier program its own delivery-completion period as CLPS 2 establishes a pool for future work.
PROMISE and VADR have separate contracts
NASA’s announcement also covered a specific rover-delivery award and six transportation task orders under VADR. Those awards have their own contractual arrangements alongside the CLPS 2 competition framework.
For the PROMISE rover, NASA announced a $94 million base contract for Blue Origin, plus an additional $140 million performance-based option. The award expands a May 2026 task order for delivery of two lunar terrain vehicles. Blue Origin is to deliver and deploy PROMISE at the lunar South Pole using its Mark 1 lander.
What PROMISE is designed to investigate
PROMISE is a planned six-wheeled, nuclear-powered rover intended to study the lunar South Pole’s surface and subsurface. NASA wants those measurements to help assess resources, choose landing sites, and plan future infrastructure.
Its instrument package makes that purpose more tangible. According to NASA’s PROMISE mission plan, a drill is intended to collect regolith, the Moon’s loose surface material, from approximately 3 feet (1 meter) below the surface. The rover is also planned to carry spectrometers, temperature and radiation sensors, and visible-light cameras.
The technology package includes radiation-tolerant computing, autonomy sensors, and autonomy algorithms. NASA says the nuclear-powered design is intended to let PROMISE operate through long lunar nights and in permanently shadowed regions. That operating scope would allow it to investigate terrain where sunlight is unavailable.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL, will manage the mission and build the rover using spare flight components and engineering test models made for Curiosity and Perseverance. NASA is targeting a launch in late 2028 and plans an 18-month rover mission.
What the six VADR orders will test
The six VADR task orders have a combined value of approximately $1.3 billion. NASA named Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin, and Impulse Space as recipients.
VADR is a separate, 10-year IDIQ arrangement with a maximum total value of $5 billion across all its contracts. Its announced missions address several transportation, navigation, and survey tasks in cislunar space, the Earth-Moon region.
| Mission focus | Planned work |
| Communications and navigation | Reduce risk for communications and navigation between Earth and the Moon. |
| CAPSTONE 02 | Deliver the spacecraft to test lunar proximity maneuvers and navigation. |
| Lunar South Pole surveys | Survey the region using mobile drones, including MoonFall. |
| Orbital transfers | Demonstrate commercial orbital-transfer operations in cislunar orbits. |
These projects address the routes and services needed to move equipment through the Earth-Moon region, as well as reconnaissance near the lunar surface. NASA names Firefly Aerospace, Impulse Space, and Quantum Space as providers of in-space transportation spacecraft for some of the announced missions. Some missions may launch aboard Relativity Space’s Terran R rocket.
Communications and power have their own planned work
SpaceX also has a separate task order under an existing lunar logistics contract for a communications demonstration. NASA plans for Starship to launch communications satellites into cislunar space in 2028.
On the surface-power side, NASA awarded component work for miniCAST, a planned Mini-Communications and Solar Tower using commercial solar arrays, batteries, and wireless power-transfer hardware. Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company, received energy-storage work; Redwire received power-generation work; and Yank Technologies, Inc. received wireless power-transfer work.
NASA anticipates a separate solicitation for fully integrated lunar power systems in early 2027.
