NASA’s new chief says the agency is prioritizing infrastructure to support long-term operations on the Moon.
NASA is scrapping plans for a lunar-orbit space station and will instead repurpose its components to build a $20 billion Moon base over the next seven years, new chief Jared Isaacman announced Tuesday.
Jared Isaacman, who was sworn in as NASA administrator in December, made the announcement during the opening of a day-long event at the agency’s Washington headquarters. There, he outlined a series of changes to the Artemis program Isaacman told delegates.
The Lunar GatewayNASA lunar orbital station”], largely built by contractors Northrop Grumman and Vantor, was originally designed as a space station in lunar orbit. Repurposing it for a surface base is complex.
“Despite some of the very real hardware and schedule challenges, we can repurpose equipment and international partner commitments to support surface and other program objectives,” Isaacman said.
Lunar Gateway was intended to function as both a research platform and a transfer hub, allowing astronauts to board Moon landers before descending to the surface.
Isaacman’s recent changes to Artemis are reshaping billions of dollars in contracts, creating urgency for contractors as China advances toward its planned 2030 Moon landing.
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