NASA Eyes Lunar Base but Still Faces Major Moon Landing Challenges

NASA is setting its sights on establishing a permanent lunar base, but significant hurdles remain before the agency can achieve routine, reliable access to the Moon’s surface. During a recent meeting of the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC), officials and industry leaders outlined both progress and persistent challenges in the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

“What we’re seeing in CLPS 1.0 is this potential for multi-mission block buys,” said Seyffert, hinting at a shift toward bulk procurement in the upcoming CLPS 2.0 phase. “So we’re looking forward to seeing that in CLPS 2.0.”

Blue Origin is active in both CLPS and the Human Landing System program. Its pathfinder cargo lander, named Endurance, is scheduled to fly to the Moon later this year, laying groundwork for a crewed lander on future Artemis missions. “The development (of the cargo lander) is done,” Seyffert confirmed. “We have great test data. We’re going to fly that later this year, and then we’re going to build to print dozens of landers to help NASA achieve its goals.”

Astrobotic, which failed on its first lunar mission and is now building a larger lander for a second attempt, also backs the block-buy approach. “I’m really excited to now leverage a finished product and be able to utilize that over and over again,” said Dan Hendrickson, vice president of business development at Astrobotic. He acknowledged past struggles: “One of the challenges, I think, that we faced is the bespoke nature, sometimes, of mission to mission. If we can try to maintain some of these vehicle types over and over again, I think we’ll reap the benefit of all of the blood, sweat and tears that went into getting our supply chain to be able to perform and to overcome some technical challenges that were pretty significant.”

Intuitive Machines is also planning a heavier lander after its initial smaller vehicles. Its Athena lander tipped over upon touchdown on March 6, 2025, marking the company’s second CLPS mission to end with a toppled spacecraft. The next mission, IM-3, is slated for launch near the end of this year, flying alongside the first node of a lunar data relay satellite constellation. “I think what you will see is the lander design modifying slightly to become basically like a Model T Ford,” said Ben Bussey, chief scientist at Intuitive Machines, suggesting a shift toward standardized, repeatable designs.

Firefly Aerospace stands out as a success story. Its Blue Ghost lander nailed its first lunar touchdown last year, returning scientific data for 14 days before the dark lunar night ended operations. A second Blue Ghost lander, using the same design, is set to launch later this year, this time carrying a pair of data relay satellites to enable a landing on the far side of the Moon. Firefly is expanding its Texas factory to increase production of landers and transfer vehicles. The first Blue Ghost mission launched in January 2025, less than four years after NASA awarded the contract. “The takeaway is that with this mission, the NASA CLPS model did what it was intended to do, which was to enable reliable access to the Moon at a fraction of the cost and schedule,” said Farah Zuberi, Firefly’s director of spacecraft mission management.

Now, the pressure is on other CLPS providers to prove they can reach the Moon, and all of them,including Firefly,must demonstrate repeatability. NASA and its contractors need to cut Firefly’s four-year lead time in half to achieve a monthly launch cadence within the next two years. To support this, NASA will adopt a more hands-on role with CLPS 2.0. “When you are building, we need to hear the things that are slowing you down, and we’re going to try to help you with those things,” Garcia-Galan told CLPS company representatives at the LSIC meeting.