NASA announces new Mars mission, reshapes goals on the moon

By Jackie Wattles, CNN

(CNN) — NASA’s new chief is reshaping the space agency’s goals, unveiling at an event in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday an ambitious vision that includes revamped plans for a moon base.

While the space agency has long had its sights set on creating a settlement on the moon for astronauts to live and work more permanently, Tuesday marked the first time NASA has revealed a timeline and road map for such efforts.

“The moon base will not appear overnight,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said at the event, called Ignition. “We will invest approximately $20 billion over the next seven years and build it through dozens of missions.”

It was not immediately clear how much of the $20 billion NASA could divert from other projects or how much new funding would be required.

Some other projects announced Tuesday by Isaacman, who took office in December, would have much tighter deadlines, most notably a brand-new nuclear-powered Mars vehicle the agency hopes to launch by 2028 — a lightning-fast timeline in the world of space travel.

The pathway to funding these innovations and bringing them to fruition is largely unclear and not without friction. But they offer key insights into the transformative plans mapped out by Isaacman, who aims to inject a sense of urgency into NASA’s scientific and human spaceflight pursuits.

Shelving a lunar space station

Since stepping into his role, Isaacman has been working to implement bold changes — from announcing a push to hire workers and bolster NASA’s “core competencies” to setting up a new mission that’s effectively a precursor to the next astronaut moon landing. And he has struck a notably more aspirational and transformative tone than many of his predecessors.

Tuesday marked his most extensive effort yet to convey that enterprising vision.

“If we concentrate NASA’s extraordinary resources on the objectives of the National Space Policy, clear away needless obstacles that impede progress, and unleash the workforce and industrial might of our nation and partners,” Isaacman said, “then returning to the moon and building a base will seem pale in comparison to what we will be capable of accomplishing in the years ahead.”

Among the flurry of announcements Isaacman made Tuesday was the revelation that NASA will pause plans to work with international partners to develop a space station to orbit the moon, called Gateway.

Envisioned as a means of supporting trips to the lunar surface as well as missions to farther destinations, the Gateway space station would have served a stop-off point in the moon’s orbit to coordinate trips for cargo and people.

The agency will instead put existing Gateway resources to use in other ways, including building the lunar base.

“Significant parts of exiting Gateway hardware and facilities can be directly repurposed to support near-term exploration objectives along with those orbital elements needed to support a surface-focused mission,” according to Carlos Garcia-Galan, NASA’s Moon Base program executive.

Isaacman has said NASA will also work to drastically increase the number of robotic landers carrying cargo and science instruments to the moon — aiming to make landings a monthly occurrence. For context, NASA and its commercial partners have sent four landers toward the moon since January 2024 with varying degrees of success.

Ramped-up robotic missions would work in tandem with the crewed missions of NASA’s Artemis program, the effort to return astronauts to the moon’s surface for the first time in half a century, to lay the groundwork for a lunar settlement.

The first crewed mission of the Artemis program, called Artemis II, is slated to launch as soon as April 1 and will fly around the moon without landing on it. The ultimate goal is to put boots back on the moon by early 2028 and pave the way for more frequent landings thereafter with perhaps two crewed missions per year.

A major change up

Issacman’s plan is pushing NASA to shift requirements and contracts, and reimagine how its space-based infrastructure will work together — especially with the Gateway space station sidelined.

He said he has also made clear to commercial space companies and NASA contractors that he is unwilling to repeat hangups of the past, when contractors have been given billions of dollars and underperformed. For example, both the Orion crew capsule and Space Launch System rocket, which were built by industry partners including Lockheed Martin and Boeing, respectively, have been billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule — a fact that has prompted some scathing reports from NASA’s Inspector General.

Currently, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX are also racing to develop the lunar landers needed to ferry astronauts from Orion down to the moon’s surface. Recent NASA oversight reports have warned that the companies’ efforts lag behind schedule and risk pushing the agency’s plans to land humans on the moon beyond the 2028 goal. Both companies have submitted proposals to NASA for expediting their lunar lander development, but officials have declined to provide details about the plans.

Speaking to a room of industry personnel and other space officials, Isaacman warned: “Expect uncomfortable action” if companies underperform on their contracts. That could suggest Isaacman is more willing than his predecessors to pull the cord on projects that turn out to be more costly, difficult and time-consuming than initially thought.

Isaacman also suggested that he plans to have NASA personnel work more extensively with the private sector.

“NASA will not be watching and hoping for the best, but will be deeply embedded alongside industry, increasing the chances of successful landings,” he said.

A new Mars mission

The 2028 Mars mission, which Isaacman called Space Reactor‑1 Freedom — or SR-1 Freedom — would put nuclear electric propulsion technology to use in space for the first time.

Isaacman has been a vocal proponent of the technology, which promises to offer extremely efficient engines ideal for powering missions to deep space. But the tech presents difficult design challenges and could carry high costs along with the risks inherent to launching nuclear systems, including radiation.

Bringing nuclear electric propulsion to fruition is not the only goal of the SR-1 Freedom mission.

The vehicle would take up the objectives previously announced as part of a proposed mission called Skyfall, designed to deploy helicopters on the Martian surface that could follow in the footsteps of Ingenuity, the first vehicle to achieve controlled flight on Mars.

Findings from the SR-1 Freedom mission would also inform NASA’s plans to create a fission reactor on the moon’s surface, which could power the lunar base throughout the lunar day and night. The agency previously revealed its intention to launch such a reactor by 2030.

Steven Sinacore, NASA’s program executive for Fission Surface Power who will also oversee the SR-1 Freedom mission, told CNN that he does anticipate needing to get the general public acquainted with such technologies to ease concerns.

“I do think we will have to sensitize the public, or at least explain to the public what it is,” Sinacore said. “Ultimately — it is safe. On the ground the reactor is off. There’s no radiation coming from it. It doesn’t actually turn on until you’re up in space, and that’s where the radiation comes from.”

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