NASA Pauses Its Lunar Gateway Station to Focus on a Moon Base

NASA said Tuesday it will pause Gateway, the planned space station in orbit around the Moon, in its current form and shift toward building a base on the lunar surface. Administrator Jared Isaacman said, “we are pausing Gateway in its current form and focusing on infrastructure that supports sustained operations on the lunar surface,” according to Space.com. NASA’s announcement said the agency will focus on infrastructure for sustained surface operations.

The agency said some existing Gateway hardware will be repurposed and that international partner commitments will be used toward the new goals, according to NASA’s release. AFP reported the same and noted that the European Space Agency was a partner on Gateway, along with other international organizations. AFP said Gateway had drawn criticism as wasteful or as a distraction from other lunar goals, calling the pause unsurprising. It added that some existing hardware has had problems.

NASA presented the change as part of a package it called “Ignition,” unveiled Tuesday to carry out the president’s National Space Policy. Isaacman said NASA aims to “return to the Moon before the end of President Trump’s term,” according to the release. AFP said the goal of returning Americans to the Moon’s surface by 2028 is unchanged and that Isaacman, who took over NASA late last year, announced an Artemis shake-up less than a month earlier.

Artemis is being reshuffled. NASA said recent updates standardized the configuration of its Space Launch System rocket, added a mission in 2027 and call for at least one surface landing each year afterward. Artemis III, scheduled for 2027, will test integrated systems and operations in Earth orbit before Artemis IV makes the lunar landing, according to the release. AFP described it as an added test mission before a landing, meant to build launch “muscle memory.”

The moon base is planned in three phases, per NASA. The first, “Build, Test, Learn,” uses the agency’s commercial lunar delivery program and its Lunar Terrain Vehicle effort to increase activity on the surface. The second adds semi-habitable infrastructure and regular logistics to support recurring astronaut stays, and Japan’s space agency JAXA will contribute a pressurized rover. The third delivers heavier infrastructure as cargo-capable landers come online, with partners including Italy’s space agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

NASA also announced a nuclear-powered spacecraft, Space Reactor-1 Freedom, which it said would launch to Mars before the end of 2028 as the first nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft, in partnership with the Department of Energy. The release said NASA is also converting thousands of contractor positions to civil service jobs.

Isaacman said the base would be developed in three phases through the end of the decade at a cost of roughly $20 billion, Space.com reported. AFP’s report did not give a cost or mention congressional reaction.