NASA said on November 7 that it selected eight companies for CLPS 2, the next phase of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, a “10-year, multiple-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity master contract with a combined maximum value of $10 billion” (NASA release).
The eight are Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, iSpace US, Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman Space Systems, SpaceX and Voyager Technologies. NASA says they “are eligible to compete for future lunar surface delivery missions under the new CLPS 2 contract”.
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The key insight: NASA said on November 7 that eight companies, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, are eligible to compete for lunar deliveries under CLPS 2, a 10-year multiple-award contract with a combined maximum value of $10 billion.
Under CLPS 2, NASA says, the companies will provide lunar delivery services, “including managing, building, and operating landers that transport NASA science, technology, and infrastructure payloads to the Moon”. The awards are part of a wider package for NASA’s Moon Base program at the lunar South Pole.
NASA also raised the value of the current CLPS 1.0 contract from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion to support initial Phase One Moon Base objectives. The original contract stays in place through November 2028, with an additional five-year period to complete awarded deliveries through November 2033.
In the same release, NASA awarded Blue Origin a $94 million base contract, with an option worth an additional $140 million based on performance, to deliver PROMISE, a nuclear-powered rover, to the lunar South Pole. It also awarded six launch and transport task orders worth approximately $1.3 billion combined to Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin and Impulse Space, under a launch contract with a $5 billion maximum.
NASA selected SpaceX for a communications demonstration: through a Specialized Delivery Mission task order, SpaceX “will launch communications satellites aboard a Starship to cislunar space in 2028”. Our earlier pieces cover the steps NASA lists before a SpaceX Moon landing and the next Starship flight.
NASA says CLPS 2 is a 10-year, multiple-award indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity master contract with a combined maximum value of $10 billion, with eight companies eligible to compete for future lunar delivery missions. NASA raised CLPS 1.0 from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion. The $1.25 billion per company is our arithmetic, an average ceiling if the maximum were split evenly, not an award.
What a $10 Billion Ceiling Means
An indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract sets terms and a maximum value; the agency then issues individual task orders, and only those orders pay. NASA’s release describes the $10 billion as a “combined maximum value” across all eight companies over 10 years, and it says the companies are eligible to compete for future missions.
The release does not name any CLPS 2 task order or say how the work will be divided. A company’s revenue from CLPS 2 depends on which missions it wins, not on its place on the list.
Our Numbers
By our arithmetic, $10 billion divided by eight companies is $1.25 billion each, an average ceiling if the maximum were used in full and split evenly. It is not an award to any company. The CLPS 2 maximum is about 2.4 times the raised $4.2 billion value of CLPS 1.0, and the CLPS 1.0 increase is $1.6 billion, about 62%, also our arithmetic.
What NASA Says About the Moon Base
Carlos García-Galán, manager of the Moon Base Program, said: “In the eight months since Ignition, we’ve made incredible strides in accomplishing the near impossible: establishing a permanent outpost on the lunar surface”.
The Structural Read
As we read the release, the $10 billion is a ceiling across all eight companies over 10 years; revenue depends on task orders that NASA has not yet announced.
As we read it, NASA raised the current CLPS 1.0 contract from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion in the same announcement, so near-term deliveries can run under the existing contract through November 2028.
As we read the wider package, Blue Origin received the one named CLPS-adjacent delivery award, a $94 million base contract with a $140 million option to deliver the PROMISE rover, while SpaceX received a Starship communications demonstration for 2028.
Carlos García-Galán, manager, Moon Base Program, NASA
“In the eight months since Ignition, we’ve made incredible strides in accomplishing the near impossible: establishing a permanent outpost on the lunar surface”
Three Implications
FOR THE EIGHT COMPANIES NASA says they are eligible to compete for future lunar surface delivery missions under the new CLPS 2 contract.
FOR INVESTORS IN SPACEX AND BLUE ORIGIN NASA’s release lists both among the eight CLPS 2 companies; it names no CLPS 2 task order for either.
FOR THE MOON BASE PROGRAM NASA says CLPS 1.0 remains in place through November 2028, with an additional five-year period to complete awarded deliveries through November 2033.
The analysis says: “A single procurement framework inside a Fortune 100 buyer can shift demand at the model layer overnight.”
As we read it, CLPS 2 is a procurement framework of that kind for lunar landers: the contract sets who may compete, and task orders decide where the money goes. The analysis discusses AI procurement and does not discuss NASA or CLPS.
What Is Not Established
NASA does not say when the first CLPS 2 task orders will be issued, how many missions it plans, or how much of the $10 billion it expects to use. We could not verify any company’s expected share. This piece makes no forecast of awards or revenue.
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NASA named eight companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin among them, to compete for Moon deliveries under CLPS 2, a 10-year contract with a combined maximum of $10 billion. The figure is a ceiling: revenue comes from task orders NASA has not yet announced. It also raised CLPS 1.0 to $4.2 billion and awarded Blue Origin a nuclear rover delivery.
A note on sourcing. Figures and quotations are from NASA’s November 7, 2026 release on Moon Base awards. The per-company average, the ratio to CLPS 1.0 and the CLPS 1.0 increase are our arithmetic. This piece is not investment advice.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
