On November 7, 2026, NASA announced a series of contracts and mission plans for building a lunar base. It said it will move forward with development of PROMISE (Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration), a lunar rover powered by a nuclear source. NASA awarded Blue Origin a contract to deliver the rover to the lunar surface, targeting a launch in late 2028. PROMISE is planned to survey the surface and subsurface at the Moon's south pole and collect data to help search for resources a future lunar base will need and to select landing sites.
The Moon's south pole has "permanently shadowed regions" that never receive direct sunlight, and some of them may preserve water ice and other substances. In these areas, PROMISE will look for hydrogen and ice underground while also measuring ground conditions, temperature and the radiation environment. The data will be used to evaluate where usable resources are distributed on the Moon and where rovers and landers can operate safely. However, this announcement concerns a future mission plan. It does not demonstrate any observation results on the lunar surface, nor the amount of ice present or whether it can be mined.
Power That Doesn't Rely on Sunlight, and a Reused Mars Rover Test Unit
PROMISE is a six-wheeled rover with a planned primary mission of 18 months. It had previously been under consideration, and Scientific American reported that NASA was weighing sending it to the Moon. This announcement formally confirms that development will proceed. According to coverage of the briefing, James Keane of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) serves as project scientist.
What makes operations in permanent shadow possible is a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG). The device converts heat produced by the natural decay of plutonium-238 into electricity, so it can supply power continuously even where sunlight never reaches. MMRTGs are also used on the Mars rovers Curiosity and Perseverance, serving not only as a power source but also as a heat source to protect instruments from the cold. PROMISE is to carry a spare MMRTG built for flight.
The rover's body also draws on technology and parts accumulated through Mars exploration. Specifically, electronics, the vehicle structure and the drive system will be repurposed from a replica of Curiosity used for ground testing, combined with spare flight parts and test-unit components built for Curiosity and Perseverance. Rather than converting a rover operating on Mars, the plan reuses equipment left on Earth. JPL, which manages the mission, intends to keep development costs and test time down by building on existing designs and operational know-how.
NASA says it evaluated whether the repurposed hardware suits the lunar environment and concluded it can withstand the harsh conditions near the Moon's south pole. However, the published materials give no details such as test temperatures, the number of tests or the number of test articles, and long-term operation on the Moon has not been demonstrated. Applying technology proven on Mars to the lunar surface will be a key technical challenge for this mission.
Drilling Down to 1 Meter to Look for Clues to Ice
One of PROMISE's main objectives is to determine whether water ice exists at the Moon's south pole and to understand how it is distributed. Detecting hydrogen underground offers a clue that water may be present, but finding hydrogen alone does not confirm the presence or amount of ice. For this reason, PROMISE will carry instruments that analyze the chemical composition of collected samples and the type of ice, in addition to a device that probes subsurface hydrogen.
At the center is TRIDENT, a rotary-percussive drill. It is designed to collect regolith, the layer of fine particles and rock covering the Moon, at 10-centimeter intervals down to a maximum depth of 1 meter. Samples brought up will be analyzed on the surface, and the drill will also measure ground strength, compaction and temperature during drilling. Note that the 1-meter figure is the design drilling depth, not a depth that has been achieved on the Moon.
The NASA PROMISE mission page lists the planned instruments and their roles. The four main instruments, organized by what they measure, are as follows.
| Instrument | Main measurement | Information obtained |
|---|---|---|
| NSS | Measures the amount of hydrogen underground | A clue to whether water may exist underground |
| MSOLO | Analyzes the chemical composition of volatiles released from collected samples | The types and composition of volatile substances in subsurface samples |
| NIRVSS | Investigates the presence and type of ice and the mineral composition of the surface | Spectral information for directly examining ice, plus mineral information |
| TRIDENT | Collects samples down to 1 meter and measures ground strength, compaction and temperature | Samples by depth and the physical properties of the subsurface |
By combining these instruments, the plan is to examine the distribution of subsurface hydrogen, the kind of ice actually present, the chemical composition of samples and ground conditions from multiple angles. Comparing hydrogen detections with sample analysis results will be important in evaluating the presence of water resources. However, each instrument obtains different data, and the amount of ice or its minability cannot be calculated from hydrogen abundance alone. This table summarizes the roles of the planned instruments; it does not show observation results from the Moon or a comparison of instrument performance.
PROMISE will carry several other instruments as well. The infrared radiometer LAFORGE will measure the extremely cold environment of permanently shadowed regions to find places where ice is more likely to be preserved. The radiation detector RAD will study the lunar radiation environment and collect data needed for future crewed exploration. TRIDENT, NSS, MSOLO and NIRVSS are also slated to fly on another lunar rover, VIPER, and NASA aims to obtain complementary data from two different regions of the south pole. This is a plan for comparing environments in different areas, not a claim of reproducing observations at the same site.
Autonomous Driving in the Dark, Applied to Choosing Lunar Base Sites
Exploring permanently shadowed regions requires not only a power supply but also technology to understand the surrounding terrain in darkness and drive safely. If a rover can recognize obstacles and terrain and decide its own route, rather than relying solely on remote control from Earth, the range it can observe expands. PROMISE also plans to demonstrate such autonomous driving technology.
To understand the surrounding terrain, it will carry SCAN-3D, a lidar system. It fires laser light and measures the reflections to build a real-time 3D map of the surroundings. The data will be processed by HPSC (High Performance Spaceflight Computing), a radiation-tolerant computer developed by NASA. Combining the autonomous navigation algorithm HI-RATE with GPU-accelerated processing, the rover aims to drive with limited human intervention even where sunlight never reaches.
This technology demonstration could lead to rovers that can drive autonomously over longer distances than before. At this point, however, it is a future demonstration plan, and no improvement in driving success rates or distances on the Moon has been confirmed. How well lidar-based terrain recognition and computer-based route decisions work in the real lunar environment will be critical.
PROMISE also plans to study ground properties using its drive system itself. By recording the interaction between the wheels and the lunar surface, it will evaluate how hard, loose or uneven the regolith is. For example, an experiment using one wheel to dig a trench and recording the process and result is among the candidates. Such data will inform decisions on where future rovers and landers can operate safely.
Overlaying hydrogen and ice observations with information on ground strength, temperature and the radiation environment should make it easier to assess not only whether resources exist but also whether a site suits base construction and exploration. This, however, is an effect expected from the instrument lineup and measurement goals, not a result from integrating multiple observations on the actual Moon. NASA's published materials also do not specify driving routes, the number of drilling sites or the number of samples to be collected. The performance of the autonomous driving technology and the usefulness of the observation data will have to await ground testing and lunar operations.
Delivery Contract Value and the Development Stage of Power Equipment for a Lunar Base
The contract with Blue Origin to carry PROMISE to the Moon has a base value of $94 million, with an option of up to $140 million that can be added depending on performance. It expands a contract awarded in May 2026 for delivering two lunar rovers, and the plan is to transport and deploy PROMISE at the Moon's south pole using the company's Mark 1 lander. These amounts are for delivery to the lunar surface and do not include PROMISE's development costs or the total cost of the mission.
NASA also selected eight companies, including Voyager Technologies, for CLPS 2, the next contract vehicle under Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS), which handles cargo delivery to the Moon. Each company can compete for future lunar delivery work, but not all delivery missions were awarded at the time of selection. CLPS 2 has a ceiling of up to $10 billion in total over 10 years, but that is a combined cap for all companies, not committed spending or the amount awarded to any specific company.
NASA also raised the contract ceiling of the existing CLPS 1 from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion. The contract vehicle remains valid through November 2028, and lunar delivery missions ordered by then may be completed by November 2033. NASA plans to maintain its existing delivery capability while using the new contract vehicle to meet future transport demand.
NASA additionally awarded six tasks worth roughly $1.3 billion in total under VADR (Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare), which covers transport in space. Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin and Impulse Space won the awards, and they will handle delivery of cargo for the lunar base and demonstrations of orbital transfer technology, among other work. The overall VADR ceiling is $5 billion over 10 years, a figure separate from the roughly $1.3 billion awarded this time and also to be distinguished from the CLPS 2 ceiling.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said of the announcements, "We are building a lunar base one mission at a time." The vision is to connect to sustained future activity on the Moon by steadily putting in place not only rovers but also the foundations of cargo delivery, orbital transport, communications and power supply.
New contracts were also announced for power and communications equipment for the lunar base. For components of miniCAST, a compact communications and solar power tower, NASA will procure energy storage equipment from Honeybee Robotics, power generation equipment from Redwire and wireless power transmission equipment from Yank Technologies. The companies' components will be assembled and integration-tested at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. At this stage, however, what is being procured are individual components, and a complete power system for use at a lunar base has not been finished.
NASA plans to issue a separate solicitation in early 2027 for a fully integrated power system. The first step is to confirm on the ground that the components work properly together, with development toward lunar operations to follow.
PROMISE is a rover that aims to use nuclear power and autonomous driving technology in the Moon's permanently shadowed regions to study subsurface ice and ground conditions in detail. Its significance lies in gathering the data needed to search for water resources and evaluate candidate landing sites in a single mission, but its effectiveness will be tested through future trials and actual lunar observations. With launch targeted for late 2028, key questions ahead are whether existing Mars exploration technology can be adapted to the lunar environment and whether the instruments and autonomous driving system can be integrated as planned.