NASA Fast-Tracks Moon Base With 3 Launches in 2026; IFT-13 FCC Window Opens But FAA Grounding Holds

Media analysis published May 29 confirmed that NASA's Moon Base program targets three uncrewed robotic missions to the lunar south pole in 2026: (1) Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance cargo lander to Shackleton Connecting Ridge (Moon Base I, targeting fall 2026) carrying NASA payloads; (2) Astrobotic's Griffin lander carrying Astrolab's FLIP rover and approximately 1,100+ lbs of cargo (Moon Base II); (3) Intuitive Machines' Nova-C Trinity lander carrying the Lunar Vertex payload to study lunar magnetic swirls (Moon Base III). If all three deliveries succeed, it would be the most intensive robotic lunar surface campaign in history and would begin stocking the site before Artemis IV crew arrives. The Weather.com analysis ('NASA Fast Tracks Its Plans for a Moon Base With 3 Launches in 2026') and the Baltimore Sun follow-on piece ('Building Moon Base: NASA Shares Updates on Rovers, Landers and Future Missions') both confirmed the three-mission structure from NASA's May 26 Moon Base news conference. Separately, the FCC Special Temporary Authority window for IFT-13 (Ship 40 + Booster 20, Starship V3) opened May 29, 2026, as originally scheduled — but SpaceX cannot launch because the FAA's formal mishap investigation into IFT-12's Booster 19 boostback failure remains open and no flight license will be issued until SpaceX submits a corrective-action report and FAA approves it. SpaceX's investigation is being conducted with FAA oversight, and analysts at NASASpaceFlight projected a July–August 2026 return-to-flight date for IFT-13 given the novelty of the Raptor 3 engine failure data. The three 2026 Moon Base cargo missions are independent of Starship HLS and are expected to proceed on their own schedules regardless of the Starship grounding.