NASA Unveils $20 Billion Moon Base Plan, Cancels Lunar Gateway Station

On Tuesday, March 24, at a daylong event at NASA headquarters in Washington, Administrator Jared Isaacman told his audience that the moon base "will not appear overnight." He then laid out, for the first time in specific terms, how the agency intends to build one: a settlement near the lunar south pole, at a cost of about $20 billion, meant to give American astronauts a permanent presence on the moon.

The idea itself is not new. NASA has said for years that a lasting lunar outpost is one of the central goals of its Artemis program. What changed on Tuesday was the detail, including a phased roadmap, and the price of admission. The plan requires canceling the Gateway, the space station that was to orbit the moon. Its resources and components will be repurposed for the surface base. Isaacman said work with international partners on Gateway will be paused.

Gateway had been designed as both a research platform and a transfer point where astronauts would board moon landers for the descent to the surface, Reuters reported. Under the new approach, that orbital role disappears and the money and hardware go to the ground.

The roadmap has three phases. The first expands the number of lunar missions over the next few years, sending rovers and other technology to test mobility, communications and nuclear power generation on the surface. In the second, rocket launches will deliver what NASA calls "semi-habitable infrastructure," along with transportation such as rovers, to support recurring astronaut operations. Only after that will NASA have the capacity to deliver the heavier infrastructure needed for a true base and a long-duration human presence. To do it, the agency plans to lean on its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which contracts privately managed missions to the moon. Isaacman said NASA will invest roughly $20 billion over seven years, building across dozens of missions with commercial and international partners.

The overhaul is the latest reshaping of the lunar program under Isaacman, who took over NASA in December as an appointee of President Donald Trump. It also comes amid a race with China. "The clock is running in this great-power competition," Isaacman said in a statement, "and success or failure will be measured in months, not years." He said NASA aims to return to the moon before the end of Trump's term, build the base and establish an enduring presence.

The schedule for people is firm in outline. A human landing is now targeted for no earlier than 2028, on the Artemis 4 mission. Leaders announced that timeframe at the end of February, along with a new Artemis 3 mission planned for 2027. That flight would send a crew into Earth orbit aboard an Orion capsule to meet and dock with at least one of the landers being developed by Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk's SpaceX. Artemis was established during Trump's first term, and aims to return Americans to the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo ended in 1972.

The robotic side is meant to accelerate sharply. NASA and its commercial partners have landed three robotic vehicles on the moon since 2024, with at least four more missions planned in 2026. In 2027, the agency plans to dramatically raise the pace, with up to 30 uncrewed landings carrying cargo and science instruments. After Artemis 5, NASA aims to run crewed surface missions at least every six months, with potential to go faster as capabilities mature.

First, though, comes Artemis 2. The mission is slated for as early as April 1, carrying three Americans and one Canadian on a 10-day trip around the moon, launching from Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop the 322-foot Space Launch System rocket. Ultimately, NASA says the south pole base is meant to support exploration and, eventually, the first human expeditions to Mars.