NASA chief Jared Isaacman announced a $30 billion plan to speed up its moon landings and establish a US moon base by 2036.
By Dan Vergano edited by Clara Moskowitz
Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator, at Mary W. Jackson Headquarters in Washington, DC, February 24, 2026.
NASA/Aubrey Gemignani
WASHINGTON, DC — NASA aims to establish a lunar base within the next decade, says space agency head Jared Isaacman announced Tuesday, unveiling a $30 billion plan to establish a permanent human presence on the lunar south pole by 2036. announcement of NASA Headquarters called for dozens of launches to the Moon over the next decade and effectively canceled plans for a long-orbiting lunar space station, “Gateway.”
“This time the goal is not flags and footprints. This time the goal is to stay” on the moon, Isaacman said. The space agency will focus its human exploration efforts on lunar base development, he said, and follow the Apollo program’s model of carrying out full-fledged test missions before sending humans. NASA will no longer prioritize the International Space Station and will support the development of a separate commercial station that will be built by private companies in the orbiting laboratory and then detached.
The ultimate goal will be to send human crews to the Moon every six months to explore the lunar south pole, which is believed to harbor ice and other valuable materials in its shadowed craters. “America will never abandon the Moon again,” Isaacman said.
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NASA is currently targeting April 1 to launch its next lunar mission, Artemis II, which will send four astronauts on a trip around the moon as part of a test of the giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion space capsule. The space agency recently announced a change of plan for its next lunar missions: in 2027, the Artemis III a crewed flight will test how well Orion docks in orbit with two lunar landing vehicles developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin. And then, in 2028, if everything goes as planned, Artemis IV will return humans to the Moon for the first time in more than half a century.
The newly announced plans would accelerate and expand the Artemis program, requiring dozens of launches of rovers, drones, power, communications and habitat modules over three stages aimed at building a lunar outpost, said Carlos Garcia-Galan, NASA’s Moon Base program manager. The lunar station will require radioactive isotope power sources, and possibly a nuclear reactor, to survive long periods of shadowing over the lunar south pole. These periods sometimes last for months and exclude solar energy.
One of the most notable aspects of the space agency’s announcement may be NASA’s adoption of nuclear power, both for the moon base and for a possible future mission to Mars, said Casey Dreier of the Planetary Society. Nuclear electric propulsion “would open up enormous possibilities for using energy in various scientific missions and, of course, in crewed missions around the solar system,” he says.
The main challenge of this “very ambitious plan” is “the cadence: the number of moon landings”, explains Garcia-Galan Scientific American. The first phase of the lunar base program plans two dozen launches to the Moon, including the Artemis IV landing, by 2028. If all goes well, taxpayers will know the agency is meeting its goals, he says.
Uncertainty over rockets could also present obstacles. The next four Artemis missions will rely on the space agency’s SLS rocket to deliver astronauts to the Moon. After that, however, the vehicle for future launches is less certain, says NASA’s Lori Glaze, acting head of the agency’s Human Exploration Directorate. A SpaceX Starship rocket is an option. A different version of Starship is also SpaceX’s competitor as a lunar lander. The company is seeking to reduce the number of on-orbit resupply missions needed for the Starship lander, now estimated at about a dozen, in order to conduct a test moon landing before delivering astronauts. “We made it clear that we were going to land by 2028,” Glaze says.
China plans to land its own astronauts to the Moon by 2030. In his announcement, Isaacman speculated that China could even exceed its own deadline and that NASA could only return to the Moon in “months, not years.”
Editor’s Note (03/24/26): This story is under development and may be updated.
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