The agency plans to expand robotic missions to the Moon and will launch a spacecraft named Space Reactor 1 Freedom.
NASA has announced a major revamp of its Moon and Mars strategy, abandoning plans for a lunar-orbit space station and instead committing $20 billion over the next seven years to build a base on the Moon’s surface. The agency is also advancing plans to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman detailed the changes on Tuesday in Washington, DC, during a meeting with partners, contractors, and government officials involved in the Artemis program. He said the agency will expand robotic missions to the Moon and begin laying the groundwork for nuclear power on the lunar surface.
Isaacman, appointed by US President Donald Trump and taking charge in December, said the changes are part of a broader overhaul of NASA’s long-term Moon-to-Mars strategy.
The planned lunar base is designed to support a sustained human presence on the Moon, with robotic missions preparing the site, testing technologies, and beginning infrastructure construction ahead of astronaut missions later this decade.
NASA also revealed plans to launch a spacecraft named Space Reactor 1 Freedom before the end of 2028. The mission will demonstrate nuclear electric propulsion in deep space en route to Mars.
The spacecraft is expected to deliver helicopters to the Red Planet, similar to the Ingenuity test helicopter flown with NASA’s Perseverance rover. NASA said this step will help transition nuclear propulsion technology from laboratory testing to operational space missions.
The Ingenuity helicopter became the first aircraft to achieve powered, controlled flight on another planet. It traveled to Mars aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover and successfully landed in February 2021
Pausing the Lunar Gateway Station
The Lunar Gateway, a planned space station in lunar orbit being developed with contractors including Northrop Grumman and international partners, was originally intended as a base where astronauts could live and work before descending to the Moon’s surface.
NASA now plans to repurpose some Gateway components for a base directly on the lunar surface.
This shift raises questions about the future roles of Japan, Canada, and the European Space Agency—three key Artemis partners that had agreed to provide components for the orbital station.
“It should not really surprise anyone that we are pausing Gateway in its current form and focusing on infrastructure that supports sustained operations on the lunar surface,” Isaacman said.
The revisions to NASA’s flagship Artemis program are reshaping contracts worth billions of dollars and come as the United States faces increasing competition from China, which aims to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030.
Launched in 2017 during President Trump’s first term, the Artemis program envisions regular lunar missions as NASA’s long-awaited follow-up to the Apollo missions, which concluded in 1972.
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