NASA defines a new direction

Permanent base on the Moon and nuclear-powered rockets to Mars!

In what was one of the most pivotal announcements from NASA in recent decades, the US space agency is making major realignments to their plans for missions to the Moon and some exciting plans for sending rockets to Mars.

At the NASA Ignition event this week a number of key programs were announced. 

First of all, the planned Lunar Gateway, a station in orbit around the Moon like the ISS (International Space Station) orbits the Earth, has effectively been cancelled and a permanent base on the Moon's surface to be set up instead.

This will happen in three phases. First to test hardware and technology on the Lunar surface, then to set up a semi-permanent station on the Moon and finally to establish a long-term, permanent Lunar base. This will mean that humans will return to the Moon and then always remain, much like the ISS has now seen people always in orbit for over 25 years.

Astronauts will travel to the Moon every 6 months, with the frequency of missions increasing over time. The building of a full time base on the Moon will mean more than just exploration of the Lunar surface. It offers the opportunity to learn about living and thriving on another planet. 

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said “We aren’t just returning to the Moon. We are building the railroad that allows the private sector to follow.”

When?

The first Moon landing by humans since 1972 is due to take place in 2028. There will also be a further 30 robotic missions to the Moon starting in 2027. The USD$20 billion program will have the full time Moon base operational by 2036.

The next flight to the Moon should be the delayed Artemis II mission due for launch this week on April 1st 2026. As we've mentioned many times in this blog, this will be the first time that humans have left Earth orbit since Apollo 17.

Also announced was the Space Reactor-1 (SR-1) Freedom mission, a nuclear-electric powered rocket set to fly to Mars in 2028. This will be the first time this type of propulsion technology has been tested in deep-space. While it won't get to the red planet any faster than a traditional chemical rocket, it will be an important test of what could become a handy method to transfer hardware to other more distant parts of the Solar System. The main payload of SR-1 will be Skyfall, a small fleet of Ingenuity class helicopters that will continue exploring Mars.

You can read more about this expansive program at the NASA website here.

Life could exist on rogue moons with a few ifs and maybes 

We chatted a few years ago about rogue planets. You can read about it here. These are planets that have formed around stars and been ejected by their host system. Astronomers estimate they're quite numerous too, with some suggesting there are as many in the Milky Way as stars themselves. One possible thought is "could life develop on a rogue exoplanet?" 

And yes, while life might find a warm niche to begin and thrive for extended periods of time, even as long the Earth has been able to provide, it will be dark. Chemical processes and bioluminescence from life might be able to produce small amounts of light, but they can't in any way compare to the amount of light from a star such as our Sun. The good ol' conversion of hydrogen into helium through nuclear fusion that occurs in a main sequence star has a lot going for it! Apart from light and warmth, life as  we experience here on Earth also requires liquid water. This is also a bit hard to find a planet without direct heat from a nearby star and likely close in temperature to absolute zero in deep interstellar space.

An artist's impression of a moon around an rogue exoplanet.  Image via D. Dahlbüdding 

However (and there's always a "however" in astronomy!) researchers have suggested that moons around rogue planets could keep oceans of liquid water for over four billion years through tidal effects with their host planets and thick hydrogen atmosphere.

One of the results of being thrown out of a star system is that any moons that a planet has could be that they move into highly elliptical orbits. This would put stresses and strains on the moon, compress and decompress it and in doing so, heat it up enough to keep any water on its surface from freezing over. Combine this with a dense atmosphere of molecular hydrogen under certain conditions acting as heat trap and the environment for life to form and develop might exist. 

 “Our collaboration with the team of Prof. Braun helped us recognize that the cradle of life does not necessarily require a sun,” says David Dahlbüdding, doctoral researcher at LMU and lead author of the study. “We discovered a clear connection between these distant moons and the early Earth, where high concentrations of hydrogen through asteroid impacts could have created the conditions for life.”

While these combinations might be rare, the vast numbers of rogue planets floating free in the Milky Way might show another pathway to life as well as studying how life arose on Earth.  

"These environments are interesting to model because they push planetary modelling into unusual regimes, but they also serve to understand the environments in which potential life precursors emerged on Earth", said Dr. Tommaso Grassi, an MPE Scientist

More on this interesting proposal here.

What did our own Solar System look like as it formed?

WISPIT 2 means we now might have a clue

VLT images of two planets forming around the young star WISPIT 2 Image via: ESO/C. Lawlor, R. F. van Capelleveen

Astronomers have so far found over 6,100 exoplanets, around about 4,575 stars, but have just spotted a planetary system being formed around another star system for the second time. Even better, the newly found system around WISPIT 2 shows a pattern of rings and gaps pointing towards more than one planet in the process of being born. 

“WISPIT 2 is the best look into our own past that we have to date,” says Chloe Lawlor, PhD student at the University of Galway, Ireland, and lead author of the study published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.  

This newly discovered exoplanet system is only the second known, after PDS 70, where two planets have been directly observed in the process of forming around their host star. WISPIT 2 has a very extended planet-forming disc with distinctive gaps and rings. "These structures suggest that more planets are currently forming, which we will eventually detect.” Lawlor says. 

"WISPIT 2 gives us a critical laboratory not just to observe the formation of a single planet but an entire planetary system," says Christian Ginski, who is the study co-author and researcher at the University of Galway.

The first planet around WISPIT 2 called WISPIT 2b was found in 2025 and appears to have a mass of around five times that of Jupiter and about 60 times as far away from WISPIT 2 as the Earth and Sun are. 

There are even hints of a third planet being formed, with it maybe around the mass of Saturn. With new, larger telescopes, there's hope that it might be imaged directly. 

Ginski commented that “with ESO’s upcoming Extremely Large Telescope, we may be able to directly image such a planet.” 

As usual, it's worth pointing out that this new star is beyond what you'll see with your own telescope. 

Next week: fingers crossed we'll be keeping track of the Artemis II crew as they travel to the Moon over the Easter long weekend.

Cheers,

Earl White

BINTEL

28th March 2026