NASA will halt plans for a lunar-orbit space station and instead focus on constructing an on-surface moon base worth roughly $20 billion (€17.25 billion) over the next seven years.
New NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, sworn in December, announced the shift during an all-day event at the agency’s Washington headquarters. He outlined revisions to the Artemis II program amid renewed international competition to return humans to the moon.
NASA has recently repositioned its Space Launch System rocket at Kennedy Space Center as it prepares for the first crewed Artemis II flight around the moon, which could occur as soon as early April after earlier delays.
The agency is pausing the Lunar Gateway project — a planned lunar-orbit outpost largely developed by contractors Northrop Grumman and Lanteris Space Systems that was intended to serve as a staging point for landers. Isaacman said pausing Gateway in its current form “should not really surprise anyone,” and that NASA will redirect effort and partner commitments toward building infrastructure for sustained surface operations. He indicated existing hardware and international contributions could be repurposed to support surface objectives.
Isaacman stressed that the core Artemis goal — returning humans to the moon’s surface by 2028 — remains intact, but said flight plans will be revised to include an additional test mission before attempting a landing, to build crew and team “muscle memory.”
The decision comes as China advances its lunar program with a possible landing target around 2030, and as China and Russia promote plans for a nuclear power plant at the moon’s south pole and an International Lunar Research Station by 2036. U.S. officials frame a renewed lunar presence as a stepping stone toward eventual crewed missions to Mars.
Isaacman, a 43-year-old entrepreneur with ties to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, said international and commercial equipment commitments could be redirected to surface priorities. Musk has recently emphasized lunar ambitions — including public talk of a “Moon City” within a decade — though some of his earlier timelines for crewed Mars missions have drawn skepticism given remaining uncrewed tests and launch-window constraints.
Edited by: Sean Sinico