NASA provides progress update on Moon Base rovers

NASA released a video update Tuesday on the commercial lunar terrain vehicles and robotic rovers being developed for the Moon Base program. The update highlighted progress on vehicles that will enable surface mobility needed to build humanity's first lunar outpost.

The VIPER rover will travel to the lunar South Pole region in 2027 to explore permanently shadowed craters looking for water and other resources. After delivery by a Blue Origin lander, VIPER will travel more than 18 miles collecting information about the thermal, lighting, and terrain environment. VIPER is currently at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston undergoing final testing before traveling to Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch.

NASA awarded Astrolab and Lunar Outpost task orders to build the first phase of lunar terrain vehicles capable of carrying crew. NASA awarded Blue Origin a task order to deliver the LTVs to the lunar South Pole region by 2028 through the CLPS initiative. The LTVs will be remotely operated from Earth, traversing up to 3.7 miles a day, prior to crew arriving on future missions.

The LTVs will be able to support up to three moonwalks per Artemis mission, transport up to 176 pounds of lunar samples and tools, and travel up to six miles on a single battery charge. Artemis astronauts will drive the LTVs to explore geologically diverse areas, gathering geology samples to bring back to Earth.

Astrolab's FLIP robotic rover is scheduled to launch in late 2026 as a testbed for the crewed CLV-1 rover. Lunar Outpost's robotic exploration rover MAPP operated at the Moon's South Pole in 2025, achieving flight-proven readiness for key subsystems. A second MAPP rover is scheduled to launch in early 2027.

In the coming months, both Astrolab and Lunar Outpost will test drivable LTV mockups with NASA crew. Lunar Outpost is scheduled to complete the preliminary design review of their LTV in October, and Astrolab is scheduled to complete their preliminary design review by the end of December. Both companies are on schedule to deliver the flight-ready hardware to NASA at the end of 2027.