NASA Is Calling on Industry to Build Its Lunar Infrastructure
NASA is making its most serious and sustained push to return humans to the Moon — and this time, the goal is not merely to visit, but to stay. Ongoing missions such as the Artemis program have already demonstrated the agency's renewed commitment to deep space human exploration. But hardware and rocket launches are only part of the equation. Maintaining a permanent human presence on the lunar surface demands a vast ecosystem of supporting technologies, many of which do not yet exist at the necessary maturity level. To address this, NASA has released a landmark request for public feedback on what it calls the Lunar Enabling Infrastructure Accelerator — a program whose acronym, LEIA, might delight more than a few Star Wars fans across the aerospace community.
This initiative represents a pivotal evolution in how NASA approaches technology development: not by building everything in-house, but by inviting the dynamism and efficiency of the private sector to shoulder a significant portion of the innovation burden. It is a model that has already borne considerable fruit in low Earth orbit, and NASA is now extending its reach toward the lunar surface with the same philosophy.
Understanding LEIA Within the NextSTEP Framework
In the complex landscape of federal solicitations, the LEIA draft solicitation is formally structured as an appendix within the broader Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships-3 (NextSTEP-3) program. NextSTEP is NASA's highly regarded public-private partnership model, designed to leverage private capital and entrepreneurial ingenuity to rapidly mature deep space technologies that would otherwise take decades and enormous public expenditure to develop through traditional procurement pathways.
This particular solicitation is administered by NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio — the agency's primary hub for power, propulsion, and communications technologies. The public feedback period remains open until July 17th, with the full solicitation expected to open for competitive bids around August 2025. Awards are anticipated to be distributed in late 2026 or early 2027, and the financial stakes are considerable: individual awards are expected to range from $5 million to $50 million, with each contract tied to rigorous, performance-based milestones spanning up to three years. This milestone-driven structure ensures that public funds are disbursed only as companies demonstrate measurable technical progress — a mechanism that has proven highly effective in programs such as NASA's Commercial Crew Program.
"NASA is taking the challenge of supporting a lunar base permanently seriously — and direct financial support for technology derisking is the clearest possible signal of that commitment."
The "Big Five": NASA's Civil Space Shortfalls
So what exactly will the private companies submitting proposals be working on? NASA has been remarkably transparent in defining its priorities. The agency has explicitly identified what it calls the "Big Five" technology gaps — officially designated as the Civil Space Shortfalls — that must be resolved before a permanent, sustained human presence on the Moon becomes feasible. These five areas form the technological backbone of any credible long-duration lunar architecture, and each presents unique engineering challenges that have not yet been solved at mission-ready maturity levels.
- Vertical Solar Arrays — Advanced power generation optimized for the unique solar geometry at the lunar poles
- Radioisotope Thermal Generators (RTGs) — Nuclear power systems that provide reliable, sun-independent energy
- In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) — Technologies to extract and process resources directly from the lunar environment
- In-Space Advanced Manufacturing — Fabrication capabilities to produce parts and structures on the Moon itself
- Innovative Nanomaterials — Next-generation materials engineered to survive the extreme lunar environment
1. Vertical Solar Arrays: Harnessing Perpetual Sunlight at the Poles
NASA's preferred sites for a permanent lunar base are concentrated near the lunar south pole, and for good reason. Regions like the rim of Shackleton Crater experience near-continuous sunlight — sometimes up to 90% of the lunar year — while nearby permanently shadowed craters harbor deposits of water ice, a resource of incalculable value for life support and propellant production. However, this high-latitude sunlight geometry presents a serious engineering challenge.
Near the poles, the Sun hugs the horizon at extremely low elevation angles, rarely rising more than a few degrees above the surface. Traditional horizontal solar panels, optimized for overhead sunlight, perform poorly under these conditions. NASA's solution is to develop tall, vertically oriented solar arrays — essentially solar towers — that can intercept low-angle sunlight efficiently and track it as it moves around the horizon. These arrays must eventually be capable of scaling into an autonomous, stand-alone lunar power grid that can support not just a single habitat module, but an entire base complex with diverse energy-intensive operations. Developing arrays that are lightweight enough to launch, robust enough to survive the lunar environment, and capable of autonomous deployment and reconfiguration is a formidable engineering challenge. Learn more about NASA's lunar power strategies at the official Artemis program page.
2. Radioisotope Thermal Generators: The Nuclear Backbone of Lunar Power
Solar power alone, however advanced, cannot fully meet the energy demands of a permanent lunar base. Periods of reduced illumination, high power loads from resource extraction and manufacturing equipment, and the sheer variability of surface operations all necessitate a reliable, sun-independent power source. This is where nuclear power becomes not merely desirable, but essential.
Radioisotope Thermal Generators (RTGs) convert the heat produced by the natural radioactive decay of materials like plutonium-238 directly into electricity via thermoelectric devices, with no moving parts and extraordinary longevity. RTGs have an impressive heritage in space exploration — they have powered missions from the Voyager probes to the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers. NASA is specifically seeking proposals to improve upon the Stirling RTG architecture, which uses a Stirling cycle engine to achieve significantly higher conversion efficiency than conventional thermoelectrics — potentially two to three times more power output from the same amount of fuel. For a permanent lunar base, more efficient RTGs translate directly into reduced plutonium requirements, lower launch mass, and greater operational flexibility. The U.S. Department of Energy partners closely with NASA on the development and production of space nuclear power systems.
3. In-Situ Resource Utilization: Living Off the Lunar Land
Every kilogram of material launched from Earth's surface to the Moon carries an enormous economic cost — estimates suggest that delivering payload to the lunar surface can exceed $1 million per kilogram depending on the mission architecture. It is therefore a strategic imperative that a permanent lunar base becomes as self-sufficient as possible by utilizing the resources already present on the Moon. This is the domain of In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU).
The lunar regolith — the loose, fragmented rock and dust blanket covering the surface — is a chemically rich feedstock. Oxygen, for instance, constitutes approximately 45% of the mass of common lunar minerals such as ilmenite and pyroxene. Extracting this oxygen through processes like molten regolith electrolysis or hydrogen reduction could yield breathable air for crew habitats and, critically, oxidizer for rocket propellant — enabling lunar-derived propellant to fuel return missions and reduce dependence on Earth-launched supplies. Water ice in permanently shadowed craters can be electrolyzed into hydrogen and oxygen, providing both propellant and drinking water. The European Space Agency is also actively investing in ISRU research as part of its own lunar exploration strategy, underscoring the global recognition of its importance.
4. In-Space Advanced Manufacturing: Building the Moon Base, on the Moon
Raw materials extracted from the regolith are only valuable if they can be transformed into functional components. In-space advanced manufacturing addresses the challenge of fabricating parts, tools, structural elements, and replacement components directly in the lunar environment, dramatically reducing the logistical burden of shipping finished goods from Earth.
The most promising technology in this domain is additive manufacturing — commonly known as 3D printing — adapted to work with lunar regolith as a feedstock. Research efforts have already demonstrated that simulated lunar regolith can be sintered or melted with lasers or focused solar energy to produce solid structural components. More advanced concepts envision robotic manufacturing facilities that could construct large-scale infrastructure elements such as landing pads, radiation shielding berms, and habitat walls before human crews even arrive. The ability to manufacture spare parts on-demand would also be transformative for mission resilience, as a single failed component can no longer abort an entire mission if it can be reprinted locally.
5. Innovative Nanomaterials: Engineering Resilience at the Atomic Scale
Perhaps the most scientifically cutting-edge of the five technology areas, innovative nanomaterials are being sought to address the punishing conditions of the lunar surface environment. The Moon presents a hostile trifecta of material challenges: abrasive regolith dust composed of sharp, glassy shards that cling electrostatically to every surface and infiltrate mechanical systems; extreme thermal cycling between roughly +130°C in full sunlight and -170°C in shadow; and intense radiation from the solar wind and galactic cosmic rays, unmitigated by any significant magnetic field or atmosphere.
Conventional materials degrade rapidly under these combined stresses. Nanomaterials — engineered at the scale of individual atoms and molecules — offer the possibility of designing materials with precisely tailored properties: extraordinary hardness and abrasion resistance, high thermal stability, radiation tolerance, and low mass. Applications could range from nanotube-reinforced composites for structural components to nanocoatings that resist dust adhesion and protect optical and electronic systems. This field sits at the frontier of materials science, and NASA's investment signals that lunar exploration will be a significant driver of materials innovation for decades to come.
A Strategic Investment in Humanity's Lunar Future
Taken individually, each of these five technology areas represents a formidable engineering challenge. Taken together, they constitute the minimum viable technology stack for a permanent, sustainable human presence beyond Earth's gravity well. None of these challenges will surprise experts who have been closely tracking lunar technology development, but the significance of direct, structured federal investment in their maturation cannot be overstated.
The LEIA solicitation reflects a hard-won institutional understanding at NASA: that the path to a permanent Moon base is not paved solely with rockets and spacesuits, but with power cables, manufacturing facilities, and materials that can outlast the relentless harshness of the lunar surface. By channeling private sector innovation through the proven NextSTEP partnership model, NASA is attempting to compress what might otherwise be a multi-decade development timeline into a far more aggressive schedule aligned with its Moon to Mars architecture goals.
Furthermore, the technologies being developed under LEIA are not narrowly lunar in their application. Advances in RTGs, ISRU, nanomaterials, and in-space manufacturing will be directly applicable to future crewed missions to Mars and beyond, making this investment a foundational step in humanity's broader expansion into the solar system. The Glenn Research Center has a long heritage of developing precisely these kinds of enabling technologies, making it a fitting administrative home for this ambitious program.
"The lunar surface is not just a destination — it is a proving ground. The technologies that allow humans to thrive there will define how far into the solar system we can ultimately reach."
How to Get Involved
The public feedback portal for the LEIA draft solicitation remains open until July 17th. NASA is explicitly soliciting input from industry partners, academic researchers, and technical experts across all five Civil Space Shortfall categories. If you represent an organization with relevant expertise — whether in power systems engineering, nuclear technology, materials science, additive manufacturing, or resource extraction — this is a rare opportunity to shape the direction of one of the most consequential technology programs in contemporary space exploration. Reading the proposed solicitation language carefully and submitting substantive technical feedback could directly influence the final program structure and award criteria.
The window is narrow, but the implications are generational. Humanity's return to the Moon — and the prospect of staying this time — may well hinge on the technologies that LEIA helps bring to fruition.
