The director of the NASA said this Tuesday that the US space agency intends to suspend its project to build a space station in orbit of the Moonknown as “Gateway”, and which will now focus instead on “build a lunar colony.”
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The change comes after NASA’s recent announcement that it would restructure its Artemis program. With which he intends to send astronauts to the Moon again and establish a long-term presence there, thinking about future missions to Mars.
“The agency intends to pause Gateway in its current form and shift focus toward infrastructure that allows sustained operations on the lunar surface“, said Jared Isaacman in a statement.
“Despite challenges with some existing equipment, the agency will reuse applicable hardware and leverage existing commitments of its international partners to support these objectives.
The European Space Agency was one of the international social organizations in the Gateway project.
The project already had criticism from those They considered it a waste. and a distraction from other lunar missions.
The Artemis program suffered multiple delays in recent years, but continues to aim take Americans to the lunar surface in 2028.
NASA is reorganizing its flight schedule to include a test mission before an eventual moon landing, Isaacman explained.
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The review also occurs amid Artemis 2 mission delays -postponed from February to April-, in which astronauts will fly around the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years.
(With information from AFP)
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