Nasa abandons orbital station, plans moon base and nuclear spacecraft

Nasa announced on Tuesday it ⁠has cancelled plans to deploy a space station in lunar orbit and ⁠would instead use components from the project to build a US$20 billion base on the Moon’s surface, while also planning to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars.US space agency chief Jared Isaacman, an appointee of US President Donald Trump who took charge at Nasa in December, announced an unprecedented array of changes to the Artemis Moon programme that would expand humanity’s footprint in space, as the US pushes to return to the Moon before China sends its astronauts there around 2030.The plans for the Moon base included ‌an aim to send more robotic landers, deploy a fleet of drones and lay the groundwork for using nuclear power on the lunar surface in the next few years.“This revised step-by-step approach to learn, build muscle memory, bring down risk, and gain confidence is exactly how Nasa achieved the near impossible in the 1960s,” Isaacman said, referring to the US Apollo Programme.SpaceX and Blue Origin have been contracted to develop lunar landers used in the Artemis Programme. Photo: Blue Origin via TNSNasa also disclosed plans to launch a spacecraft called Space Reactor 1 Freedom to Mars before the end of 2028 in a mission it said would demonstrate advanced nuclear electric propulsion in deep space.