It is reported that NASA Stop work on the Moon Gate in favor of a more direct push to build a lunar base. He new plan It would cost tens of billions over the next decade, although the change could face hurdles because Congress previously funded Gateway specifically. SpaceNews reports: “Starting today, we are building humanity’s first outpost in deep space,” said Carlos García-Galán, NASA program executive for the lunar base. The lunar base will be developed in three phases. Phase 1, which will run between 2026 and 2028, “is about getting to the Moon reliably,” he said. That includes a significant increase in the cadence of lander missions through Commercial Lunar Cargo Services and other programs. It will also focus on developing enabling technologies and obtaining “ground truth” for potential base locations at the lunar south pole.
Phase 2, from 2029 to 2031, begins with base construction, he said. That would include building communications, navigation, power and other infrastructure, developing large CLPS cargo landers and supporting two crewed missions a year. Phase 3, beginning in 2032, will enable “long-distance, long-duration human exploration” on the Moon, he said, with routine logistics missions to the Moon and unmanned cargo return missions from the Moon. García-Galán said NASA plans to spend $10 billion each on Phases 1 and 2. Phase 3, which will last at least until 2036, would cost an additional $10 billion or more.
The base would take advantage of existing programs, although with some changes. NASA is planning to renew the lunar rover program after concluding that the current approach would take too long to get a crewed rover to the Moon. “We were projecting a delivery on the lunar surface by 2030,” he said. Instead, the agency is issuing a draft request for proposals for simplified mobile vehicles that could be faster and easier to develop but could be updated later. The foundation, however, would include some new capabilities and technologies. One example García-Galán provided was MoonFall, a drone that could jump from one place to another on the lunar surface. The drones will “build on the legacy” of Ingenuity, the small Mars helicopter. “We’re going to take everything we learned from the Ingenuity systems, the avionics, all of that, to build this.”
