NASA will turn spare Mars rover parts into a nuclear-powered robot to hunt for ice at the Moon's South Pole
The agency announced the rover, named PROMISE, on Saturday with new contracts for robot landers that could carry up to $10 billion in cargo work. Launch is targeted for late 2028.
NASA said Saturday it will build PROMISE, a six-wheeled, nuclear-powered rover that will scout the Moon's South Pole for ice and other resources. The agency announced the rover at Kennedy Space Center in Florida along with a package of contracts for robotic landers, rockets and space cargo vehicles that will haul equipment to the Moon.
PROMISE stands for Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration. NASA is targeting a late 2028 launch and an 18-month mission.
A Mars rover, recycled
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which built the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers now on Mars, will assemble PROMISE mostly from parts it already has. Engineers will reuse the electronics, body and wheel system of the duplicate Curiosity rover that has served as a test model on Earth, plus spare parts built for both Mars missions, the agency said. NASA said reusing proven hardware cuts cost and shortens the schedule. The rover will be about the size of an SUV.
Why nuclear power
Rovers that run on solar panels lose power in the dark. The Moon's South Pole has long nights and deep craters that never see sunlight, where scientists believe ice may be preserved. PROMISE will instead carry a radioisotope generator, which NASA describes as essentially a nuclear generator. It turns heat into electricity, the same type of power source that runs Perseverance, so the rover can keep working through lunar nights and inside frozen craters.
What the robot will do
PROMISE will carry a drill to pull up soil from about 3 feet below the surface and check it for water ice, NASA said. It will also carry instruments that read the chemistry of the soil, temperature and radiation sensors, and cameras. It will test a new computer built to survive radiation and "advanced autonomy" software, meaning programs that let the rover make some driving and work decisions on its own instead of waiting for commands from Earth.
Water ice matters because astronauts could one day turn it into drinking water, breathable oxygen or rocket fuel, which is why NASA calls the frozen craters crucial for a lasting human presence on the Moon.
Robot delivery trucks
Robotic landers will do much of the early hauling. NASA picked eight companies to compete for future Moon delivery missions under a new 10-year contract worth up to $10 billion combined: Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, ispace-U.S., Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman Space Systems, SpaceX and Voyager Technologies. The agency also raised its current delivery contract from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion.
Blue Origin, the space company founded by Jeff Bezos, won a $94 million base contract, with a $140 million option, to land PROMISE on the Moon with its Mark 1 lander. NASA also plans to send drones, called MoonFall, to scout areas that rovers cannot reach before astronauts arrive.
"We are building the Moon Base mission by mission," said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.
Source: NASA news release 26-095, Nov. 7, 2026; NASA PROMISE mission page