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

On Tuesday, March 24, at a daylong event at NASA's headquarters in Washington, Administrator Jared Isaacman laid out something the agency had long hinted at but never detailed: a plan to build a permanent moon base near the lunar south pole. The price tag is about $20 billion. The cost to another project is just as concrete. NASA is canceling Gateway, the space station that was meant to orbit the moon, and redirecting its resources to the surface.

The idea of a lunar settlement where astronauts live and work has been a stated goal of the Artemis program from the start. What is new is the specificity, including a phased roadmap. Isaacman was blunt about the pace. The moon base, he said, will not appear overnight. NASA says it will invest roughly $20 billion over the next seven years and build the base across dozens of missions, working with commercial and international partners.

The first phase is a sharp increase in lunar missions over the next few years. Rovers and other technology will go to the surface to test mobility, communications and nuclear power generation. In the second phase, rocket launches will deliver what NASA calls semi-habitable infrastructure, along with transportation such as rovers, to support recurring astronaut operations on the surface. Only after that, with heavier infrastructure delivered, would NASA have the ability to sustain a long-duration human presence. To get there, the agency plans to lean on its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which contracts privately managed missions to the moon.

The numbers behind that ramp-up are large. NASA and its commercial partners have landed three robotic vehicles on the moon since 2024, and at least four more missions are planned for 2026. In 2027, the agency wants up to 30 uncrewed landings carrying cargo and science instruments. After the Artemis 5 mission, the goal is crewed surface missions at least every six months, with the potential to go faster as capabilities mature.

Gateway was designed as both a research platform and a transfer point, where astronauts would board landers before descending to the surface, according to Reuters. Isaacman said the new plan pauses work with the international partners that were developing it. Its resources will be repurposed for the base instead.

The overhaul is the latest reshaping of the lunar program under Isaacman, who took over in December as an appointee of President Donald Trump. It also arrives amid what the source describes as a heated race to the moon between the United States and China. In his statement, Isaacman said NASA is committed to returning to the moon before the end of Trump's term, building a base and establishing an enduring presence. He added that the clock is running in this great-power competition, and that success or failure will be measured in months, not years.

The Artemis timeline has shifted as well. Artemis, established during Trump's first term, aims to return American astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo era ended in 1972. A human landing is now targeted for no earlier than 2028 under Artemis 4. At the end of February, NASA announced that target and a new Artemis 3 mission, planned for 2027. That crew will fly an Orion capsule to Earth orbit and dock with at least one lander being developed by Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, or by Elon Musk's SpaceX.

First comes Artemis 2, the program's first crewed flight, which could launch as early as April 1 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Three Americans and one Canadian will ride the 322-foot Space Launch System rocket on a 10-day trip around the moon. That flight is the next thing to watch, with the base's first robotic phase following in the years after.