NASA has initiated a major strategic shift in its lunar exploration program by suspending the Lunar Gateway orbital station to concentrate resources on building a crewed base near the Moon’s south pole. The objective is to establish a durable, then near-permanent, human presence on the surface by the early to mid‑2030s, as a stepping stone toward future Mars missions.
Approximately 20 billion dollars have been allocated to this surface‑focused architecture, with a deployment in three main phases through the 2030s. The agency’s nine‑page “Moon Base” document outlines required capabilities, key milestones and technical needs, without constituting a detailed engineering blueprint. The plan starts with robotic cargo deliveries and autonomous rovers at the end of the 2020s, followed by increasingly long crewed stays of at least a month.
In the first phase, dozens of launches are planned to land several tonnes of equipment, including rovers and power demonstrators. The second phase foresees the arrival of the first crews from 2029 and about 60 tonnes of infrastructure, with pressurized habitats and regular crew rotations. A third phase from around 2032 would add roughly 150 tonnes of additional systems, enabling a sedentary, permanently maintained base capable of operating between crew visits through advanced robotics, robust power generation and high‑bandwidth communication constellations in lunar orbit.