NASA to ‘pause’ orbital lunar space station and pivot to lunar base

WASHINGTON – NASA’s chief said on March 24 the US space agency “intends to pause” its Gateway project that would have created a space station in orbit around the Moon, instead shifting focus towards “building a lunar base”.

“The agency intends to pause Gateway in its current form and shift focus to infrastructure that enables sustained surface operations,” Jared Isaacman said in a statement.

“Despite challenges with some existing hardware, the agency will repurpose applicable equipment and leverage international partner commitments to support these objectives,” he said.

The European Space Agency, among other international organisations, were partners on the planned Gateway project.

The announcement comes in the wake of NASA’s shake-up of the Artemis programme, which aims to send Americans back to the Moon and establish a long-term presence there, paving the way for eventual missions to Mars.

The suspension of the Gateway orbital lunar project is not entirely surprising: It has fallen under some criticism as wasteful or a distraction from other lunar ambitions.

Mr Isaacman, who took the helm of NASA late in 2025, abruptly announced less than a month earlier that NASA was shaking up its Artemis programme that has suffered multiple delays in recent years, as it aims to ensure Americans can return to the Moon’s surface by 2028.

That goal remains unchanged, but the US space agency is shifting its flight lineup to include a test mission before an eventual lunar landing to improve launch “muscle memory”, Mr Isaacman said.

That strategic revision comes amid repeated delays to the Artemis 2 mission, which was originally due to take off as early as February, but is now targeting early April. It is meant to see the first flyby of the Moon in more than half a century. AFP