It seems like the incipit of a new season of the TV series For All Mankind, with one difference: this time it’s not fiction but an official plan of the NASAwith dates, contracts, billions already allocated and even theItaly in the cast of protagonists. In the background, the usual race: Washington he wants it back Moon “forever” while Beijing accelerates to plant its flag by 2030.
Within a few weeks the NASA did what he had carefully avoided until now: put in black and white a timetable, an architecture and even suppliers for a real lunar base on the South Pole. At the heart of the plan is the program Moon Base (renamed Ignition Moon Base in the technical documents), which supports – and in fact surpasses – the old narrative centered on the station Gateways in lunar orbit.
NASA reveals the architecture of Ignition Moon Base
The sequence is clear: first a battery of robotic missions to explore, map and test key technologies, then the arrival of manned rovers, finally habitation modules and nuclear and solar energy infrastructure for a “semi-permanent” presence by 2032. The declared political objective is equally explicit: to bring the Americans back to the surface before the end of the mandate of Donald Trump in 2029 and, in the words of the new administrator Jared Isaacman“never leave the Moon again”.
The new course starts from three already named missions, designed to build the infrastructure piece by piece and reduce the risk for manned landings at the end of the decade.
Moon Base I: Launch no earlier than fall 2026 with lander Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance Of Blue Origintasked with delivering the first scientific payloads to the ridge connecting the crater Shackleton.
Moon Base II: mission expected later in 2026, with the lander Griffin Of Astrobotics which will carry over 500kg of cargo, including the rover FLIP Of Astrolab to test long-range mobility systems.
Moon Base III: In this year’s mission package there is also the lander Nova‑C Trinity Of Intuitive Machines with the payload Lunar Vertex to study the lunar “swirls”, supported by instruments of theEuropean Space Agency and the Korean Institute KASI.
These are just the first of more than a dozen robotic missions that, according to documents, should take off by 2029, with 25 launches and about four tons of total cargo deposited on the lunar soil. In the driest language of the managers of the NASAserve to collect “operational data” and transform the South Pole in an open-air construction site before the arrival of the astronauts.
Behind the glossy slides with renderings of white domes and solar towers there is a network of contracts that involves almost the entire new American space ecosystem.
There NASA awarded $219 million to Astrolab and 220 million a Lunar Outpost to develop the first generation of Lunar Terrain Vehiclespressurized “pick-up” rovers capable of transporting astronauts, instruments and materials over long distances. The CLV‑1 Of Astrolabderived from architecture FLEXis designed to be compact in launch but capable of moving at over 10 km/h on flat ground, while Pegasusthe vehicle of Lunar Outpostfocuses on lightness and manual, autonomous or teleoperated driving for up to a year of operation.
On the lander front, Blue Origin has secured a $188 million contract (with an option for another $280.4 million) to transport the rovers and cargo NASA towards the South Pole. To complete the picture there is MoonFalla mission developed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory which includes four “jumping” drones to explore the most inaccessible and darkest areas of the South Polewith a launch aimed at 2028 and a stay of several months thanks to payloads designed to survive the lunar night.
Behind this “lunar renaissance” there is a silent evolution of the program CLPSthe contractual framework with which the NASA buy delivery services on Moon “turnkey”. The first phase, CLPS 1.0allowed the model to be tested with companies such as Intuitive Machines And Astroboticsbetween successes and failures which however gave the program operational credibility.
The new program, CLPS 2.0aims for greater flexibility: the agency will be able to choose whether to have a complete service delivered or receive only the hardware to integrate it into its own missions. The final tender came out on May 15, with a deadline at the end of June, and includes periodic “on-ramps” to bring in new suppliers and keep competition alive. In parallel, the contracts for the rovers and landers are structured as fixed-price milestones, to contain the political and financial risks of a program which, according to estimates released in March, is worth around 20 billion dollars until the construction of the energy base by 2032.
In the mosaic of the new Moon made in the USA there is a tricolor patch which, for once, is not just symbolic. On May 22nd theItalian space agency (ASI) announced that its housing form Multi‑Purpose Habitation (MPH) has passed the joint review of system definition and system requirements of NASAearning the green light to proceed towards the Preliminary Design Review expected in 2027.
The first module MPH is expected to arrive on the surface in 2033, becoming the backbone of the housing capacity of the Moon Base. The project, developed by Thales Alenia Space under a bilateral agreement signed in 2022 and formalized in a Statement of Intent with the NASA in March 2026, includes not only pressurized modules but also segments of communications infrastructure and surface science experiment packages. According to the agreement, theItaly will get at least one seat for an astronaut on a future mission Artemistransforming a technical partnership into a very concrete political dividend.
For ASI it is “a decisive milestone that brings us closer to the final goal of providing humanity with the fundamental technological infrastructure to live and work permanently on the Moon”, as the press release states. In the first twelve months the Italian-French team will have to consolidate the project to the level required to move on to the detailed design phase and hardware construction.
The race to the moon base is not an academic exercise: the stakes are political-strategic even before they are scientific. There China has a more sober but equally ambitious timetable: it aims to bring the first astronauts to our satellite by 2030, with a program that proceeds with few announcements and many hardware tests.
While the NASA illustrates landers, rovers and drones at a press conference, Beijing just launched the Shenzhou‑23 towards the space station Tiangongconsolidating a presence in low orbit that serves as a training ground for long-duration operations. For Washingtontherefore, the acceleration up Moon Base it is also a propaganda operation: demonstrating that you have “a plan” serves to reassure Congresspublic opinion and international partners who United States I’m still ahead in the new space race.
Not surprisingly Isaacman speak openly about aAmerica that “it will never give up the Moon again”, while internal analysts underline the possible economic returns: from the extraction of ice for water and propellant to the use of South Pole as a springboard for missions towards Mars. There Moon thus it becomes, once again, a terrain for power projection, with the difference that, compared to the Cold War, today the conflict also passes through the budgets of private companies and their ability to respect times and costs.
On paper, the scenario looks a lot like a well-written season of For All Mankind: tight timeline, frontier technology, politics that push you to “move quickly”. However, as many experts interviewed by the company recall BBCbetween slides and Moon there are technical and financial bottlenecks that risk extending the script beyond 2030.
The Achilles’ heel remains the manned landing system: SpaceX is contractually responsible for providing the “human” version of Starshipit Human Landing Systembut the program has already accumulated delays and several testing incidents. In the meantime too Blue Origin has its problems: on May 29th a rocket from the company exploded on the launch pad Jeff Bezos. “The limiting step is to bring the astronauts to the surface,” summarizes the lunar Simeon Barberunderlining that, until there is an operational and certified lander, all other components of the base remain potentially blocked.
For this reason, many scientists consider the target of an American return to the world unrealistic Moon with base under construction already by 2029, compared to a China which proceeds with fewer internal political constraints and a more vertical decision-making process. Barber himself says that “he wouldn’t be surprised at all if China got there first”, just as the NASAunder the pressure of the competition, is forced to “show that she has plans” in order not to lose ground on a narrative level.
In other words, the plot is ready, the cast has been chosen and even theItaly has its leading role in the scenography of the Moon Base. It remains to be seen whether, when the cameras will really turn on the gray sand of South Polewe will be the first to see a tracksuit with the stars and stripes or the red of the People’s Republic: history, unlike TV series, almost never respects press release deadlines.
