NASA to Spend $20 Billion Building Lunar Base, Cancels Lunar Orbiting Station
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced on Tuesday that NASA will cancel plans to deploy a space station in lunar orbit and instead use its components to build a $20 billion base on the lunar surface within the next seven years.
Jared Isaacman, who took office in December of last year, announced the news at the opening of a day-long event at NASA Headquarters in Washington, where he also outlined a series of reforms to NASA’s flagship lunar program, “Artemis.”
“Isaacman told attendees at the event: “We will pause the current form of ‘Lunar Gateway’ and focus on supporting infrastructure for sustained operations on the lunar surface, which I don’t think will come as a surprise to anyone.”
The Lunar Gateway station is primarily being built by contractors Northrop Grumman and Vantor (formerly Maxar) and is designed to be a space station docked in lunar orbit. Repurposing the spacecraft for a lunar surface base is not straightforward.
Isaacman said: “While there are some practical challenges in terms of hardware and schedule, we can leverage equipment and commitments from international partners to support lunar surface and other program goals.”
The Lunar Gateway serves as both a research platform and a transit station, which astronauts will use to board lunar landers before descending to the lunar surface.
In recent weeks, changes made by Isaacman to the US flagship lunar landing program are reshaping multi-billion dollar contracts under the Artemis program.