NASA's Moon Base Revolution: Gateway Cancelled, Nuclear Mars Mission Announced & More

0:00 Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Astronomy Daily.

0:03 Speaker 2: I'm Anna and I'm Avery, and our producer has handed

0:07 Speaker 2: us quite a lineup today.

0:08 Speaker 1: He really has. NASA just rewrote the future of human spaceflight,

0:14 Speaker 1: not once, but twice in a single day.

0:17 Speaker 2: We're talking a twenty billion dollar moon base, the first

0:21 Speaker 2: nuclear powered spacecraft heading to Mars, a star system that

0:25 Speaker 2: looks just like our own solar system did four billion

0:28 Speaker 2: years ago, plus.

0:29 Speaker 1: A brand new look at one of the most iconic

0:32 Speaker 1: objects in the night sky, a clever technology that could

0:35 Speaker 1: protect future moonwalkers, and a rocket company celebrating another milestone launch.

0:41 Speaker 2: It's Wednesday, the twenty fifth of March twenty twenty six.

0:44 Speaker 2: This is Astronomy Daily.

0:47 Speaker 1: We start with what is genuinely a landmark moment in

0:50 Speaker 1: the history of space exploration policy. NASA has officially canceled,

0:55 Speaker 1: or rather paused, the Lunar Gateway program.

0:58 Speaker 2: For anyone who needs a quick refresher, the Lunar Gateway

1:02 Speaker 2: was a planned space station that would have orbited the Moon.

1:05 Speaker 2: The idea was that astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft would

1:08 Speaker 2: dock with Gateway before descending to the lunar surface. It's

1:12 Speaker 2: been in development for years, with major contractors like Northrope

1:16 Speaker 2: Grumman already deep into building it.

1:18 Speaker 1: And now NASA's new administrator, Jared Isikman, who took the

1:23 Speaker 1: top job back in December, has announced their shelving it.

1:26 Speaker 1: The announcement came on Tuesday at what NASA called its

1:30 Speaker 1: Ignition Day event at headquarters in Washington, and.

1:33 Speaker 2: It wasn't exactly a shock to those following the program closely.

1:37 Speaker 2: Isikman's exact words were, it should not really surprise anyone

1:41 Speaker 2: that we are pausing Gateway in its current form and

1:44 Speaker 2: focusing on infrastructure that supports sustained operations on the lunar surface.

1:49 Speaker 1: So instead of an orbital station, NASA is going all

1:53 Speaker 1: in on building an actual base on the Moon. The

1:56 Speaker 1: plan comes with a twenty billion dollar price tag over

1:59 Speaker 1: seven years, and it's structured in three phases.

2:03 Speaker 2: Phase one, running from twenty twenty six to twenty twenty eight,

2:06 Speaker 2: is described as getting to the Moon reliably. That means

2:10 Speaker 2: ramping up robotic lander missions, testing technologies, and scouting potential

2:14 Speaker 2: base locations at the lunar South Pole.

2:17 Speaker 1: Phase two, from twenty twenty nine through twenty thirty one,

2:21 Speaker 1: starts physically building the base communications, navigation, power infrastructure, larger

2:28 Speaker 1: cargo landers, and the goal of two crude missions per year.

2:32 Speaker 1: Japan's Space Agency JACKSA is contributing a pressurized rover for.

2:37 Speaker 2: This phase and Phase three from twenty thirty two onwards

2:41 Speaker 2: is when it all comes together, bong duration human presence

2:45 Speaker 2: on the lunar surface with multipurpose habitats from the Italian

2:49 Speaker 2: Space Agency and the Lunar Utility Vehicle from the Canadian

2:53 Speaker 2: Space Agency.

2:54 Speaker 1: What about the gateway hardware that's already been built that's

2:57 Speaker 1: not going to waste. NASA says it will repurpose components

3:01 Speaker 1: for the Moon base and for other programs, including, as

3:04 Speaker 1: we'll hear shortly, a very exciting Mars mission.

3:08 Speaker 2: There are political dimensions here too. Isaac Man was direct

3:12 Speaker 2: about the competitive pressure from China, whose space program is

3:16 Speaker 2: targeting a lunar landing by twenty thirty. He said, and

3:20 Speaker 2: I'm quoting, we find ourselves with a real geopolitical rival,

3:24 Speaker 2: challenging American leadership in the high ground of space.

3:28 Speaker 1: DASA also confirmed it intends to land astronauts on the

3:32 Speaker 1: Moon before the end of President Trump's term, with Artemis

3:36 Speaker 1: four and five targeting the lunar surface as early as

3:39 Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight.

3:41 Speaker 2: Now the international partners who had committed to the Gateway

3:44 Speaker 2: are understandably going to have questions. This is a significant

3:48 Speaker 2: reshaping of an agreement that involved space agencies around the world.

3:52 Speaker 1: Absolutely, but the message from NASA seems to be the

3:56 Speaker 1: destination hasn't changed. It's just how we get there that's

3:59 Speaker 1: being reimagined, a permanent base rather than a way station

4:03 Speaker 1: in orbit.

4:04 Speaker 2: It's a bold, ambitious pivot. Whether the timeline proves realistic,

4:09 Speaker 2: that's the big question.

4:10 Speaker 1: But wait, that wasn't the end of the big announcements, was.

4:13 Speaker 2: It certainly not, And that segues perfectly into our second story,

4:18 Speaker 2: which was also announced at the same Ignition Day event,

4:21 Speaker 2: and honestly, it might be even more mind bending.

4:25 Speaker 1: NASA is planning to launch the world's first nuclear powered

4:29 Speaker 1: interplanetary spacecraft in December twenty twenty eight. It's called Space

4:34 Speaker 1: Reactor one Freedom or SR one Freedom for short.

4:38 Speaker 2: Let's just sit with that for a second. The first

4:41 Speaker 2: nuclear powered craft ever to leave birth sphere of influence.

4:46 Speaker 2: We've had nuclear powered surface rovers and probes using radioactive

4:49 Speaker 2: decay for power, but this is different. This is a

4:53 Speaker 2: fission reactor propelling a spacecraft to another planet.

4:57 Speaker 1: The technology is called nuclear electro propulsion or NEP. Rather

5:03 Speaker 1: than using the reactor's heat directly for thrust, as a

5:06 Speaker 1: nuclear thermal propulsion would, NEP uses a fission reactor to

5:11 Speaker 1: generate electricity, which then powers highly efficient ion thrusters. It's

5:16 Speaker 1: described as extraordinarily efficient for moving large amounts of cargo

5:20 Speaker 1: across deep space, and.

5:22 Speaker 2: SR one Freedom will actually be built partly from repurposed

5:26 Speaker 2: lunar gateway hardware, specifically the power and propulsion element that

5:31 Speaker 2: was already under development, so nothing is going to waste.

5:35 Speaker 1: The spacecraft will carry a payload called Skyfall, a fleet

5:39 Speaker 1: of three small helicopters modeled on NASA's ingenuity the famous

5:44 Speaker 1: rotocraft that flew seventy two times on Mars after arriving

5:48 Speaker 1: with the Perseverance rover.

5:49 Speaker 2: These Skyfall helicopters will be deployed mid air during Mars

5:53 Speaker 2: atmospheric entry, no skycrane required, and will land themselves on

5:58 Speaker 2: the Martian surface to scout potential future human landing sites,

6:03 Speaker 2: map hazards, and use ground penetrating radar to locate subsurface

6:08 Speaker 2: water ice deposits that.

6:10 Speaker 1: Last point is crucial if we're going to put humans

6:13 Speaker 1: on Mars, which is clearly the long term ambition. Knowing

6:16 Speaker 1: exactly where the water is, how deep it is, and

6:20 Speaker 1: how accessible it might be for incitu resource utilization is

6:23 Speaker 1: absolutely foundational.

6:26 Speaker 2: NASA's Program Executive Steve Sinecor also left a door open

6:30 Speaker 2: for SR one Freedom to continue flying after it drops

6:33 Speaker 2: off the skyfall payload. Whether it heads deeper into the

6:36 Speaker 2: Solar System is still an open question.

6:39 Speaker 1: And there's a broader strategic logic here. SR one Freedom

6:43 Speaker 1: isn't just a Mars mission, it's a pathfinder. The plan

6:47 Speaker 1: is that what we learn from it will inform Lunar

6:50 Speaker 1: Reactor one, a future fission power system for the Moon base.

6:54 Speaker 1: The same nuclear technology that will power the Moon base

6:57 Speaker 1: could one day power missions to the outer Solar ste System.

7:00 Speaker 2: Not everyone is convinced the twenty twenty eight timeline is achievable.

7:04 Speaker 2: Some prominent voices in the planetary science community have been skeptical.

7:09 Speaker 2: The timeline is extraordinarily tight for a first of its

7:12 Speaker 2: kind nuclear spacecraft, but the ambition is undeniable. For me.

7:17 Speaker 1: The exciting thing is that this mission was conceived to

7:20 Speaker 1: also do real science NASA's science chief Nikola Fox, made

7:25 Speaker 1: the point that sr I freedom is a great opportunity

7:28 Speaker 1: to carry science instruments to Mars, and researchers are being

7:32 Speaker 1: invited to propose what instruments could.

7:34 Speaker 2: Fly nuclear propulsion, Mars, helicopters, water ice mapping. This is

7:40 Speaker 2: the space program firing on all cylinders.

7:43 Speaker 1: Let's travel four hundred and thirty seven light years away

7:46 Speaker 1: now to the constellation Aquilla, where astronomers have made a

7:50 Speaker 1: discovery that is genuinely remarkable, a time capsule of what

7:54 Speaker 1: our own solar system may have looked like over four

7:57 Speaker 1: billion years ago.

7:59 Speaker 3: Using the u S European Southern Observatories very large telescope

8:03 Speaker 3: in Chile, researchers have directly observed two planets in the

8:08 Speaker 3: process of forming around a baby star called PDS seventy

8:13 Speaker 3: and I mean baby. This star is only around five

8:16 Speaker 3: point four million years old. Our Sun is about four

8:20 Speaker 3: point six billion years old, so we're talking about a

8:24 Speaker 3: system that is barely a toddler in cosmic terms.

8:27 Speaker 1: The two planets, designated wisp it to B and wisp

8:32 Speaker 1: it to C are both gas giants more massive than Jupiter,

8:37 Speaker 1: and crucially, they're actively carving out gaps in the disk

8:42 Speaker 1: of gas and dust that surrounds their parent star. That's

8:46 Speaker 1: actually how astronomers spotted them by the telltale lanes they're

8:50 Speaker 1: clearing in what's called the proto planetary disc.

8:55 Speaker 2: Wispit to B sits at about sixty times the distance

8:58 Speaker 2: between Earth and the Sun. Whisp it to See is

9:01 Speaker 2: closer in at around fifteen Earth Sun distances, so about

9:06 Speaker 2: four times closer to the star than its sibling.

9:09 Speaker 1: The team used multiple cutting edge instruments to confirm the discovery,

9:14 Speaker 1: including sphere and gravity plus on the VLT, and The

9:18 Speaker 1: lead researcher, Chloe Lawler from the University of Galway in Ireland,

9:23 Speaker 1: called wisp it to the best look into our own

9:27 Speaker 1: past that we have to date.

9:29 Speaker 2: There's also hints in the disk structure of potentially a

9:33 Speaker 2: third forming planet, possibly of Saturn's mass. The researchers think

9:38 Speaker 2: there may be more worlds yet to be detected.

9:40 Speaker 1: What makes this so significant isn't just that we've found

9:44 Speaker 1: planets forming, we've seen evidence of that before, but that

9:48 Speaker 1: we can directly image them at this early stage. With

9:52 Speaker 1: this level of detail, it's like watching a solar system

9:56 Speaker 1: being assembled in real time.

9:58 Speaker 2: And the comparison to our own system is striking two

10:02 Speaker 2: large gas giants forming at the outer edges, potentially more

10:06 Speaker 2: planets inward. It does rhyme with the architecture of our

10:10 Speaker 2: own Jupiter, Saturn, and the rest.

10:12 Speaker 1: The research was published this week in the Astrophysical Journal Letters,

10:17 Speaker 1: and I think we can expect a lot more observations

10:20 Speaker 1: of Wispit too in the coming years, including potentially with JWST.

10:26 Speaker 2: Now we have a story that is equal parts science

10:29 Speaker 2: and nostalgia. NASA has released stunning new Hubble space telescope

10:33 Speaker 2: images of the crab Nebula, and they were taken exactly

10:37 Speaker 2: twenty five years after Hubble first pointed at this iconic object.

10:41 Speaker 1: For those new to the crab Nebula, it's the remnant

10:45 Speaker 1: of a supernova explosion that was observed from Earth in

10:49 Speaker 1: the year ten fifty four. Chinese and Arab astronomers at

10:53 Speaker 1: the time recorded a new star so bright it was

10:57 Speaker 1: visible in daylight for weeks. We're looking at today is

11:01 Speaker 1: the expanding wreckage of that explosion, a roiling cloud of

11:05 Speaker 1: gas and dust about six thousand, five hundred light years

11:09 Speaker 1: away in the constellation Taurus.

11:12 Speaker 2: It's one of the most studied objects in the entire sky,

11:16 Speaker 2: and Hubble has been watching it for a quarter of

11:18 Speaker 2: a century. The new images reveal something beautiful and slightly eerie.

11:23 Speaker 2: You can actually see the nebula changing. The cloud is

11:27 Speaker 2: still expanding, still in motion, nearly one thousand years after

11:31 Speaker 2: the original explosion.

11:33 Speaker 1: Astronomer William Blair from Johns Hopkins University, who was involved

11:37 Speaker 1: in the study, put it beautifully. He said, we tend

11:41 Speaker 1: to think of the sky as unchanging, immutable. However, with

11:45 Speaker 1: the longevity of the Hubble Space Telescope, even an object

11:50 Speaker 1: like the crab nebula is revealed to be in motion,

11:53 Speaker 1: still expanding from the explosion nearly a millennium ago.

11:58 Speaker 2: What I love about this story is that it's a

12:00 Speaker 2: reminder of just how extraordinary Hubble's lifespan has been. This

12:05 Speaker 2: telescope launched in nineteen ninety it has now been watching

12:09 Speaker 2: the sky, watching the crab nebula, specifically for twenty five years.

12:14 Speaker 2: The ability to compare images over that timescale and actually

12:17 Speaker 2: see change is something no single astronomer's career could deliver.

12:22 Speaker 1: The new images are published in the Astrophysical Journal, and

12:26 Speaker 1: they are frankly gorgeous. All those blues and golds and reds,

12:31 Speaker 1: the intricate filaments of the shell, the pulsar at the

12:34 Speaker 1: heart of it, all still spinning away. If you haven't

12:37 Speaker 1: seen them, do look them up.

12:40 Speaker 2: The crab nebula, still expanding, still spectacular, still teaching us

12:44 Speaker 2: things after nearly a millennium.

12:47 Speaker 1: Here's a story that combines elegant simplicity with genuinely important science.

12:52 Speaker 1: Researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory have published two new

12:57 Speaker 1: studies suggesting that fiber optic cables laid directly on the

13:02 Speaker 1: surface of the Moon could be used to detect moonquakes.

13:06 Speaker 2: Now on Earth, fiber optic cables used for sensing have

13:10 Speaker 2: to be buried because even a gentle breathe can vibrate

13:13 Speaker 2: the cables and create noise in the data. But the

13:16 Speaker 2: Moon has virtually no atmosphere, there's no wind, and it

13:19 Speaker 2: turns out that means you don't need to bury them

13:22 Speaker 2: at all.

13:23 Speaker 1: The technique is called distributed acoustic sensing or DAS. Essentially,

13:28 Speaker 1: you send rapid laser pulses through a fiber optic cable,

13:31 Speaker 1: and tiny imperfections in the glass scatter light back to

13:35 Speaker 1: a detector. By analyzing those reflections, you can measure vibrations

13:39 Speaker 1: along the entire length of the cable, which means a

13:42 Speaker 1: single fiber could function like thousands of individual sensors at once.

13:47 Speaker 2: Compare that to what we had during Apollo five. Seismometers

13:51 Speaker 2: place that specific points on the near side of the

13:54 Speaker 2: Moon between nineteen sixty nine and nineteen seventy seven, incredibly

13:58 Speaker 2: valuable data, but enormously emitted in coverage. A fiber optic

14:02 Speaker 2: network could cover hundreds of kilometers of the lunar surface

14:05 Speaker 2: with a rover simply unspooling cable as it drives.

14:08 Speaker 1: And moonquakes are a fascinating phenomenon in their own right.

14:12 Speaker 1: Unlike earthquakes, which are driven by tectonic plate movement, moonquakes

14:17 Speaker 1: are caused by tidal forces from Earth's gravity, meteorite impacts,

14:22 Speaker 1: and extreme temperature swings. The lunar surface swings from over

14:26 Speaker 1: one hundred degrees celsius during the day to minus one

14:29 Speaker 1: hundred and seventy degrees at night, And because the Moon

14:33 Speaker 1: is geologically quieter in some ways, seismic energy doesn't dissipate

14:37 Speaker 1: as quickly. A moonquake can ring on for much longer

14:41 Speaker 1: than an equivalent event. On Earth.

14:43 Speaker 2: Researchers also pointed out that fiber networks could monitor hazards

14:47 Speaker 2: beyond moonquakes. When the rocket lands or takes off the Moon,

14:50 Speaker 2: particles get blasted off the surface at up to two

14:53 Speaker 2: kilometers per second. For future bases and infrastructure, understanding how

14:58 Speaker 2: far that debris travels is genuinely important for safety planning.

15:02 Speaker 1: Lead researcher Carl Donahue from Los Alamos summed it up,

15:06 Speaker 1: fiber optic cables are lightweight, robust, and inexpensive. In the

15:10 Speaker 1: world of space exploration, where every kilogram to the lunar

15:14 Speaker 1: surface costs of fortune, that combination is extremely attractive.

15:19 Speaker 2: A small, elegant solution with big implications for how we

15:22 Speaker 2: understand and operate on the Moon. We love a story

15:25 Speaker 2: like that.

15:26 Speaker 1: There is certainly no shortage of Moon planning stories around

15:29 Speaker 1: at the moment, and.

15:30 Speaker 2: We close today with a launch story, one that's about

15:33 Speaker 2: much more than just putting two small satellites into orbit.

15:36 Speaker 1: Rocket Lab launched two pioneering navigation satellites for the European

15:41 Speaker 1: Space Agency this morning in a mission called Daughter of

15:44 Speaker 1: the Stars. The Electron rocket lifted off from Rocket Labs

15:48 Speaker 1: complex on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand, targeting a

15:52 Speaker 1: circular orbit five hundred and ten kilometers above Earth.

15:56 Speaker 2: The two satellites are the first of an eventual eleven

15:59 Speaker 2: satellite demonstration consolation called Celeste, and Celeste itself is the

16:03 Speaker 2: first ever satellite navigation initiative that Europe has launched into

16:07 Speaker 2: low Earth orbit.

16:08 Speaker 1: Most people will be familiar with Galileo, Europe's answer to GPS,

16:13 Speaker 1: which operates from medium Earth orbit several thousand kilometers up.

16:17 Speaker 1: Cleste is something different. The idea is to add a

16:20 Speaker 1: complementary low Earth orbit layer that flies much closer to Earth,

16:25 Speaker 1: enhancing Galileo's performance, stronger signals, faster time to fix, better

16:30 Speaker 1: resilience against jamming and spoofing.

16:33 Speaker 2: There is also a geopolitical dimension here. The Baltic Sea

16:36 Speaker 2: region has seen significant GPS jamming and spoofing incidents in

16:40 Speaker 2: recent years. L EO navigation satellites broadcast stronger signals across

16:45 Speaker 2: multiple frequency bands, which makes them far harder to interfere with.

16:49 Speaker 1: Now. The mission name Daughter of the Stars is absolutely

16:53 Speaker 1: beautiful and it's not a coincidence. Thelest is named after

16:56 Speaker 1: Maria Celeste, the daughter of Galileo GALILEI the seventeenth century

17:01 Speaker 1: astronomer whose name already graces Europe's main navigation constellation. There's

17:06 Speaker 1: a lovely continuity there.

17:08 Speaker 2: This is also the first ever dedicated rocket Lab mission

17:11 Speaker 2: for the European Space Agency, and rocket Lab has been

17:15 Speaker 2: having a remarkable year. Their electron rocket is becoming one

17:18 Speaker 2: of the most reliable small launch vehicles on the planet,

17:21 Speaker 2: and missions like this show just how far New Zealand

17:24 Speaker 2: space industry has come.

17:26 Speaker 1: There was actually a practical urgency behind this launch. ESA

17:30 Speaker 1: had a deadline at the International Telecommunication Union. They needed

17:34 Speaker 1: to put their allocated frequency bands into operation by May

17:38 Speaker 1: twenty twenty six to secure them for the future operational system.

17:42 Speaker 1: The launch today wasn't just scientifically significant, it was technically necessary.

17:48 Speaker 2: ESA hopes to have the full eleven satellite demonstration constellation

17:52 Speaker 2: operational by twenty twenty seven, with a much larger operational

17:56 Speaker 2: system to follow. Three hundred satellites in orbit by twenty

17:59 Speaker 2: third is the eventual target.

18:01 Speaker 1: From a hilltop launch site in New Zealand, Europe takes

18:05 Speaker 1: its first steps towards its own low orbit navigation network.

18:09 Speaker 1: Rocket Lab as always getting it done.

18:12 Speaker 2: Rocket Lab is fast becoming the little company that could

18:15 Speaker 2: congratulations all round on today's successful launch.

18:18 Speaker 1: And that is our show for Wednesday, the twenty fifth

18:21 Speaker 1: of March. What a day it's been for space News.

18:24 Speaker 2: NASA reimagining its entire lunar architecture, the first nuclear interplanetary

18:29 Speaker 2: spacecraft on the drawing board, Planets forming around the Baby

18:32 Speaker 2: Star four hundred and thirty seven light years away, Hubble

18:36 Speaker 2: still delivering awe after thirty five years in orbit, fiber

18:40 Speaker 2: octic cables on the Moon, and Rocket Lab heading to

18:43 Speaker 2: five hundred and ten kilometers above Earth for ESA.

18:46 Speaker 1: If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, leave us a review,

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