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Ignition

Page: https://www.nasa.gov/ignition/. No date of its own; fetched 2026-10-01T18:39:06Z. File: sources/moon-base/nasa-gov-ignition.md. This is the page the Users Guide points to "for full, up-to-date phasing implementation details" (Users Guide, p. 4).

Summary. The hub page for NASA's "Ignition" event of 24 March 2026. It is a list of links, not a text: the Ignition news release, six fact sheets and five presentations (plus a NASA Inspires recap), videos, two Artemis updates, and short summaries of the procurement notices NASA issued after the event (requests for information, RFIs, and requests for proposals, RFPs). The page's own text gives no phase details. For the phases, it links the "Building the Moon Base" fact sheet and presentation, which hold them. The summaries below are the page's; the SAM.gov notices themselves were not fetched.

Key points

  • Documents linked (dates as the page prints them):
Topic Fact sheet Presentation
Ignition Mar 24, 2026, 155.14 KB (ignition.pdf) "NASA Inspires" recap (6-nasa-inspires.pdf), no date
Going Back to the Moon Mar 24, 2026, 139.47 KB (going-back-to-the-moon.pdf) Mar 26, 2026, 18.63 MB (1-going-back-to-the-moon.pdf)
Building the Moon Base Mar 24, 2026, 173.23 KB (building-the-moon-base-1.pdf) Mar 26, 2026, 31.37 MB (2-building-the-moon-base.pdf)
Staying in Low Earth Orbit Mar 24, 2026, 151.78 KB (fact sheet) Mar 26, 2026, 8.32 MB (deck 3)
Golden Age of Science and Discovery Mar 24, 2026, 217.99 KB (fact sheet) Mar 26, 2026, 16.74 MB (deck 4)
America Underway in Space on Nuclear Power Mar 24, 2026, 194.16 KB (fact sheet) Mar 26, 2026, 5.40 MB (deck 5)
  • Artemis updates linked: "Artemis Program Update" (March 3, 2026) and "Artemis Update Release" (Feb. 27, 2026). Neither is held.
  • Under "Going Back to the Moon" ("Enabling Commercial Lunar Transportation to Support a Sustained Lunar Base", an RFI). NASA seeks input "to help shape a future acquisition strategy for commercial human lunar transportation services capable of supporting a permanent, continuously crewed U.S. lunar base". The RFI "responds directly to the December 2025 Executive Order, 'Ensuring American Space Superiority'". Proposed systems "must be capable of rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking with existing human landing system (HLS) providers". Topics include "staging orbits, autonomous operations, interoperability with current and future Artemis elements", human-rating, reuse, and "projected cost structures aligned with future Firm‑Fixed‑Price service acquisition". See Human Landing System.
  • Under "Building the Moon Base":
    • CLPS 2.0 (draft RFP, "Commercial Lunar Payloads Delivery 2.0 Follow-on Procurement"): "a competitive follow-on" to CLPS 1.0, delivering "to the lunar surface and orbit". NASA may "order turn-key delivery services or accept delivery of CLPS hardware for integration into its own missions". "an anticipated 10-year ordering period and a fifteen-year execution timeline", "targeted to be capped at $6 billion".
    • Moon Base Capabilities (RFI): "NASA is taking bold steps toward establishing a permanent lunar outpost by 2030". It seeks "technologies and hardware solutions that can be rapidly developed or repurposed for demonstration testing on the lunar surface within the next two to four years", and ideas on "critical supply chain and test facility challenges". "Key areas of interest include propellant tank dome manufacturing, high-thrust hypergolic engines, radiation-hardened electronics, and hypergolic test stands capable of altitude testing, among others." The 2030 date and the phases' dates differ (open question 77).
    • Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services contract ("a revised task ordering approach"): "multiple crewed and uncrewed rovers with initial operating capabilities by 2028". Uncrewed LTVs: "basic autonomy and teleoperations, a minimum operational life of one year, and the ability to traverse at least 800 kilometers, with added incentives for surface improvement demonstrations". Crewed LTVs: "a minimum operational life of one year, and a traverse distance of at least 900 kilometers, including 100 kilometers of additional crewed traverses". The first phase is a competition among "Astrolab, Intuitive Machines, and Lunar Outpost", with later "onramp competitions". See Lunar Terrain Vehicle.
    • CLPS CX-2 task order (CLPS 1.0): "delivering the Lunar Terrain Vehicle to the Moon's South Pole", landers "with proven heritage", "readiness for deployment in 2028".
    • CLPS CS-8 task order (CLPS 1.0): "Moon Base payload deliveries" on landers "with proven heritage" by "the end of 2028", "deliveries through Fiscal Year 2029". It offers "a performance bonus for contractors who successfully demonstrate 'survive the night' capabilities by deploying a radioisotope device and transmitting signals from the lunar surface after enduring a full lunar night".
  • Under "Golden Age of Science and Discovery" ("Lunar Science and Technology Payloads", an RFI): payloads "to support increased CLPS missions aligned with the Artemis program's goals for lunar exploration and establishing a permanent lunar presence by 2030", "ready-to-fly and medium-term". Two other science RFIs (a microwave radiometer for FALCON; "Science as a Service") don't bear on Moon to Mars.
  • Under "Staying in Low Earth Orbit": RFIs on a "U.S. Space Station Core Module and associated commercial modules", and on crew and cargo transport to commercial LEO destinations ("two crew missions and four to five cargo missions annually"). Related page: RT-8 Leverage Low-Earth Orbit (not updated with this).
  • Under "America Underway in Space on Nuclear Power": links only.

Open question 10's Ignition part

The Users Guide sends readers here for "full, up-to-date phasing implementation details" (p. 4). The page's own text has none. It links the "Building the Moon Base" fact sheet and presentation, and those hold the details. The fact sheet gives each phase's dates, names, contents and cargo (fact sheet). The presentation, the Moon Base Program's Ignition deck, prints the guide's p. 4 figures with a date range for each phase. It adds per-year tables of assets, landers and launches for Phases 1 and 2, "$10 BILLION" for each of those phases, and key missions with specifications (Ignition deck 2; Phases). Both are dated March 2026, before the guide, and the deck's dates disagree with themselves (open questions 5 and 10).

Moon Base hub · Phases · Missions and assets · Needs · CLPS · Lunar Terrain Vehicle · Ignition news release