NASA has flown its Safe and Precise Landing – Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) payload on an Alta-X drone through simulated lunar descent and landing maneuvers, with the system mapping terrain and diverting the drone to a safer spot when a targeted area was unsafe. The flights took place on August 27, 2026, at Rogers Dry Lake near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.

NASA described the results in an article published November 4, 2026, presenting the tests as a demonstration of technology meant to help spacecraft navigate autonomously to safe landing sites on the Moon and other planets. Project manager Davis Adams said, “This flight test is the culmination of almost a decade of work, for the SPLICE project.”

How the drone tests worked

According to NASA, SPLICE used an advanced guidance system during the tests to map the terrain and assess potential landing areas. If the targeted area was unsafe, the system diverted the drone to a safer location. It generates high-resolution digital elevation maps from light-detection and sensor data.

Researchers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston developed the SPLICE payload and worked with specialists at NASA Armstrong to integrate, test and fly it on the Alta-X in June and July. NASA said those earlier flights verified communications, data handling, telemetry and command-and-control performance, and prepared the system for a full-scale test at Voyager Technologies in Mojave, California.

NASA photos from July 15, 2026, show Adams confirming that SPLICE was communicating with the Alta-X during hover maneuvers, with small uncrewed aircraft pilot Justin Link and chief pilot Justin Hall on the test team. Adams said the flight raised the technology readiness level of SPLICE, preparing it for future robotic and crewed lunar flights. He added that validation of its guidance and navigation systems applies to terrestrial, lunar and Martian descent and landing missions.

A system built for small landing zones

In a September 17, 2020 article, NASA said SPLICE was being developed under the Game Changing Development program of its Space Technology Mission Directorate, and described it as a suite combining laser sensors, a camera, a high-speed computer and algorithms that find a designated landing area, identify hazards and adjust course. NASA said the system should let spacecraft avoid boulders and craters within landing areas about half the size of a football field.

The same article set out how far landing precision has come. The Apollo 11 landing ellipse was about 11 miles by 3 miles, with astronauts piloting the lander, and the ellipse for the Curiosity rover in 2012 was 12 miles by 4 miles. NASA said pinpoint landing would open areas previously considered too hazardous for unpiloted landings and let supply missions deliver cargo to one location instead of spreading it over miles.

The 2020 article listed four main subsystems: terrain relative navigation, navigation Doppler lidar, a descent and landing computer, and a hazard detection lidar. Terrain relative navigation compares camera images, taken at up to 10 pictures per second, against preloaded satellite images and a landmark database, while the Doppler lidar’s laser beams measure velocity and range 20 times per second. At the time, NASA said three of the four subsystems would have their first integrated test flight on a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket.

NASA’s Flight Opportunities project, based at Armstrong, supported early SPLICE flight testing, including a 2019 test of a descent altitude and landing trajectory similar to a lunar mission and a 2020 demonstration of two NASA-developed precision landing sensor systems. John Carson, NASA’s technical integration manager for precision landing, said in 2020 that “Safely and precisely landing on another world still has many challenges,” and that no commercial technology yet existed to buy for the job.

Where SPLICE fits in NASA’s Moon Base plans

NASA said it has worked with several commercial lunar lander providers to implement versions of SPLICE, and that some landers planned for upcoming Moon Base missions use data NASA collected while developing systems like it to achieve soft touchdowns on the lunar surface. The agency added that it is coordinating with industry on use of the guidance system, and that some companies are evaluating its navigation capabilities for precision landing and potential autonomous surface mobility.

On November 7, 2026, NASA selected eight companies for its CLPS 2 contract for Commercial Lunar Payload Services: Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, ispace-U.S., Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman Space Systems, SpaceX and Voyager Technologies. NASA said CLPS 2 is a 10-year master contract with a combined maximum value of $10 billion, under which the companies can compete for future lunar deliveries and will manage, build and operate landers carrying NASA payloads. Voyager Technologies, the host of the planned full-scale SPLICE test in Mojave, is on that list.

The same announcement expanded the May 2026 lunar terrain vehicle task order with Blue Origin to include delivery of the PROMISE rover to the lunar South Pole, and described missions that will send highly mobile drones, including NASA’s MoonFall survey mission, to the South Pole before astronauts arrive.

For SPLICE itself, the next steps NASA has named are the full-scale test at Voyager Technologies and the release of the guidance system through the NASA software catalog in fall 2026.

NASA has selected eight companies to compete for lunar cargo deliveries under a new 10-year Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contract with a combined maximum value of $10 billion, and has raised the value of its current CLPS contract from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion. The agency announced the awards, together with a nuclear-powered rover and about $1.3 billion in launch task orders, on Saturday, November 7, 2026, at the MAX POWER aerospace expo and air show at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

In a news release dated November 7, 2026, NASA said the package covers commercial robotic deliveries, the PROMISE rover, launch and orbital transfer services, and surface infrastructure for a sustained presence at the Moon’s South Pole. The awards follow the agency’s Ignition event on March 24, 2026, where NASA announced its Moon Base effort. “We are building the Moon Base mission by mission,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in the release.

Eight companies for the next lander contract

The companies selected for the next phase of CLPS are Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, iSpace US, Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman Space Systems, SpaceX and Voyager Technologies. NASA described CLPS 2 as a 10-year, multiple-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity master contract under which the eight can compete for future lunar surface deliveries.

The current contract, which NASA calls CLPS 1.0, stays in place through November 2028, with an additional five years, through November 2033, to complete deliveries already awarded. In a May 26, 2026, update, NASA said it had released the final request for proposals for CLPS 2.0 on May 15 and that the next generation of cargo landers would let the agency order turnkey delivery services or accept delivery of CLPS hardware for its own missions.

How CLPS started

NASA first made nine US companies eligible to bid on lunar surface deliveries on November 29, 2018, under indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts with a combined maximum value of $2.6 billion over 10 years. Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines and Lockheed Martin Space were in that first group and are again among the eight CLPS 2 selections.

NASA’s CLPS page, last updated July 6, 2026, lists a pool of 13 eligible American companies on contract under CLPS and says the agency has awarded 17 lunar deliveries to five CLPS vendors, carrying more than 60 payloads. NASA states on the same page that it has accepted the risk that some commercial missions could fail.

PROMISE: a nuclear-powered rover built from Mars spares

The Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration (PROMISE) is a six-wheeled, nuclear-powered rover that will land at the South Pole to study the surface and subsurface, assess resources and support future landing site selection. NASA said the rover can operate through long lunar nights and in permanently shadowed regions thought to hold ice.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech, will manage the mission and build the rover from spare flight components and engineering test models for the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers. The rover will carry a drill to reach about 3 feet (1 meter) below the surface, spectrometers, temperature and radiation sensors, visible-light cameras, NASA’s High Performance Spaceflight Computing system, and autonomy sensors and algorithms. NASA is targeting a late 2028 launch and an 18-month mission.

Blue Origin received a $94 million base contract, with a performance-based option worth an additional $140 million, to deliver PROMISE. “Blue Origin will use its Mark 1 lander to deliver and deploy the rover as part of the Moon Base’s first phase,” NASA said. The agency said the award expands a May 2026 task order for two lunar terrain vehicles. Under that award, announced on May 26, 2026, as part of NASA’s lunar rover and lander contracts, Blue Origin received $188 million, with an option period worth $280.4 million, to deliver the Astrolab and Lunar Outpost rovers to the South Pole region.

Launch, transport and communications

NASA awarded six task orders under its Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) launch services contract to Arrow Science and Technology, Blue Origin and Impulse Space. The orders total about $1.3 billion and fall under a 10-year VADR contract with a maximum value of $5 billion across all contracts. When NASA first selected 13 VADR providers in January 2022, those contracts had a five-year ordering period and a maximum total value of $300 million across all contracts.

The missions fall into three types: verifying communications and navigation between Earth orbit and the Moon, including CAPSTONE 02; sending highly mobile drones, including MoonFall, to survey the South Pole before astronauts arrive; and testing navigation and multi-orbit operations in cislunar space. Launches will use Blue Origin’s New Glenn, Relativity Space’s Terran R and SpaceX’s Falcon 9. In-space transportation will come from Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Impulse Space and Quantum Space.

For MoonFall, Firefly said in its second-quarter 2026 results that it had been awarded a $75 million subcontract from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to deliver four drones to the Moon’s south pole with its Elytra spacecraft for MoonFall, targeted to launch no earlier than 2028. Separately, NASA selected SpaceX under an existing lunar logistics contract for the Cislunar Communications Deployment Demonstration. Through a Specialized Delivery Mission task order, SpaceX will launch communications satellites aboard a Starship to cislunar space in 2028.

Power towers and data gaps

NASA plans to buy commercial components for a Mini-Communications and Solar Tower (miniCAST), which combines power and communications. Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company, will provide energy storage, Redwire will provide power generation, and Yank Technologies, Inc. will provide wireless power transfer. Engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will assemble and test the systems.

NASA expects that work to begin within months, with a separate solicitation for fully integrated power systems anticipated in early 2027. The agency also intends to issue a directed call under its NextSTEP-3 B solicitation (Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships) to fill high-priority data gaps for Moon Base development, through small spacecraft missions, payloads on future Moon Base flights or purchases of data from commercial partners.

Carlos García-Galán, manager of the Moon Base Program, said in the release: “We’ve consolidated numerous efforts into a streamlined program.” He added:

“Most importantly, we’ve taken action, awarding new contracts and forging new partnerships to accelerate development.”

AirPro News analysis

The CLPS 2 maximum of $10 billion compares with the $2.6 billion NASA set for the original lander contracts in 2018, a figure now raised to $4.2 billion, and NASA’s VADR figures have gone from a $300 million ceiling in 2022 to a $5 billion maximum. For suppliers, the November 7 package spans landers, launch, in-space transport and surface power.

Blue Origin appears in nearly every part of the announcement: as a CLPS 2 selection, as the PROMISE delivery provider, as a VADR task order recipient and launch provider, as an in-space transportation provider and, through Honeybee Robotics, as a miniCAST supplier. Firefly Aerospace appears both in CLPS 2 and among the in-space transportation providers. The dates to watch are the early 2027 power systems solicitation, the November 2028 end date of the CLPS 1.0 contract, and the 2028 targets for PROMISE, MoonFall and the SpaceX communications demonstration.

Europe’s reusable Prometheus rocket engine ran several hot-fire tests on October 29, 2026, at the P5 test bench in Lampoldshausen, Germany, using a combustion chamber made with a new additive manufacturing process and reigniting several times without a high-pressure starter. The European Space Agency (ESA) said the tests confirmed that both the upgraded bench and the new production methods work.

In an article published on November 6, 2026, ESA said the reignitions relied on engine inlet pressure instead of a high-pressure starter, a first in Europe for an engine of this class. ESA supported the campaign through its Future Launchers Preparatory Programme, with ArianeGroup as prime contractor. ESA owns the P5 bench and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) operates it.

What the October tests proved

The new combustion chamber was made by cold gas spray, an additive manufacturing method in which metal powder travelling at high speed bonds to the chamber body. ESA said the method shortens production time, simplifies complex parts and reduces cost.

Prometheus burns liquid oxygen and methane and is designed to be low-cost and reusable. ESA said it can restart in flight, can be reused across multiple flights and is intended to fit several reusable launcher stages and future European launchers. Its thrust is similar to that of the Vulcain 2.1, the largest European engine in use, which powers Ariane 6. According to ESA, using methane fuel lowers engine and launcher design costs.

A test stand rebuilt for methane

P5 is one of Europe’s largest cryogenic propulsion test facilities. ESA said it was built for the Ariane 5 development programme and has qualified the Vulcain engines and the complete Ariane 6 upper stage. DLR’s own project page describes P5 as ESA’s largest test facility, operated by the DLR Institute at Lampoldshausen.

For Prometheus, the bench was upgraded to run liquid methane, and Prometheus was the first engine fired there on liquid oxygen and liquid methane. ESA said the upgrade can be reversed quickly to supply oxygen and hydrogen, so P5 can still test liquid hydrogen engines. DLR says the converted stand will support quick switching between fuel combinations, including liquid oxygen with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen with methane.

Where Prometheus stands

DLR describes the ESA Prometheus programme as the development of a demonstrator for a reusable engine in the “100 tonnes thrust class,” with modulated thrust. A 120-tonne-thrust version running on liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen is being developed in parallel to test hydrogen-related technology, according to DLR. ArianeGroup manufactures the engine. DLR lists APP of the Netherlands, AVIO of Italy, GKN Aerospace of Sweden and Safran Aero Booster of Belgium as industrial partners, and says the French space agency CNES, which started the programme with ArianeGroup, provides technical support to ESA.

The engine’s earlier test history ran through ArianeGroup’s facility in Vernon, France. In October 2023, ESA reported that an early prototype had achieved first ignition there in June 2023, followed on October 20, 2023, by a 30-second firing with re-ignition. At the time, ESA said new materials and manufacturing techniques were expected to bring costs to a tenth of those of Ariane 5’s Vulcain 2, and that ArianeGroup planned to install a prototype on a test bed modified for liquid methane at DLR’s Lampoldshausen site.

Prometheus has also been tested mounted in Themis, an early prototype reusable stage developed in parallel under an ESA contract. ESA said in 2023 that a more advanced Themis prototype was being prepared for “hop-tests” in Kiruna, Sweden, aiming to lift off and rise as high as 100 m to check flight and landing capability. AirPro News covered the assembly of the Themis demonstrator as part of Europe’s push for reusable launchers.

ESA did not give a date for the next Prometheus test series in its November 6 article. DLR says its Lampoldshausen site will conduct the Prometheus test campaigns on P5, and it also lists a related demonstrator, the ETID engine model, for a liquid oxygen and methane upper-stage engine with 100 kilonewtons of thrust intended for future heavy-lift rockets.