GoKawiilNASA formally announced its Moon Base back in March 2026 and has been working on several projects simultaneously to further the objective of putting people on the moon in a more permanent capacity.
On Tuesday, NASA gave reporters some updates about how that plan is coming along during a press conference and Q&A session.
The overall tone was positive as NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and Moon Base program manager Carlos García-Galán discussed NASA's upcoming plans and fielded questions about whether those plans were affected by recent events, such as the untimely explosion of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket during a ground test in late May.
The explosion caused a lot of damage to Blue Origin's only launchpad, and there were concerns that it would set back NASA's plans for the Moon Base since the damage would take some time to repair. Some of the Moon Base missions were set to use New Glenn as a launch vehicle.
García-Galán and Isaacman said everything was still going according to plan.
"Blue Origin's response to the situation is almost beyond impressive," Isaacman said. "They're making great progress, so Plan A is still very much to launch the (Mark 1 lunar lander) on New Glenn. We have time. They're very committed to the business of getting back to launching New Glenn before the end of the year."
García-Galán said three lunar landers were in the advanced stages of development, including the Blue Origin Mark 1 lunar lander, the Astrobotic Griffin Lander and the Intuitive Machines Nova-C lander. This was in response to reports that Blue Origin's lunar lander was more than half a year behind schedule.
The Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost lander was the first commercially built lander to successfully land on the Moon. Firefly Aerospace
NASA is also busy making sure that there is plenty of science done during all of these missions. The agency awarded several new contracts for various scientific instruments, including a camera array to map lunar dust displacement during landings, a retroreflector array to help guide incoming spacecraft waiting in orbit and the LETS, a spectrometer that measures the radiation environment on the moon.
It's all part of the first phase of NASA's Moon Base plan, which is scheduled to conclude in 2029, followed immediately by phases two and three, culminating in a permanent, long-term human presence on the moon.
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