NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman is going all in on building a Moon base, with initial plans kicking off next year.
Isaacman is calling for monthly lunar lander missions to the South Pole starting in 2027, saying the only way to build a Moon base is with regular, frequent missions. Those missions will largely rely on the CLPS program framework, he said.
“We are going to plus up for Moon base construction in a huge way,” said during an interview with Spaceflight Now that was released late Friday night.
That effort—as well as an Artemis update beyond the fifth mission—will be on the agenda for a gathering in the nation’s capital “in the not too distant future.”
Paving the way: Isaacman talked about all kinds of infrastructure that will be needed for a lunar base, such as comms and power generation equipment, including nuclear power sources. He also said NASA will conduct a surface improvement demo—essentially testing out whether large rovers will be able to manipulate lunar regolith to someday be able to build stable landing pads for crew and cargo missions.
“Everyone is going to get a lot of shots on goal over the next couple of years in advance of a crewed landing,” he said.
Back in the fold: These kinds of missions are only possible, Isaacman said, if NASA has the right workforce—a mission that’s also underway. At KSC alone, thousands of applications have already been submitted to transition staff from contractors to NASA’s civil servant workforce—and Isaacman said he’s fixing the policies to put the right long-term team in place.
“We trust them to do the work on the rocket as a contractor, but some 30-year old policy at NASA says it can’t be a civil servant,” he said. “Wrong. We’re fixing that right now.”
Isaacman highlighted employees who work on the launch pad or rockets as being critical to be full-time NASA staff. He also said 100% of the staff in Mission Control will be civil servants.
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Part 4 in a series on orbital communications
Spacecraft today operate in an environment defined by two accelerating forces: the explosive growth of satellites in orbit, and the rapid evolution of cyber threats targeting them. As missions become more autonomous, networked, and interdependent, the need for strong, adaptable security has moved from a supporting feature to an operational requirement.
Viasat’s answer is a new generation of reprogrammable space cryptography—a system designed to secure every layer of HaloNet’s communications infrastructure. While previous articles in this series explored how HaloNet delivers continuity (launch telemetry) and flexibility (hybrid terminals), this article turns to the capability that makes all of those functions trustworthy: encryption.
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