NASA will cancel the SLS rocket and look for a cheaper alternative to colonize the moon and Mars

It was seen comingbut the impact is not less. The Trump administration has presented its budget proposal for fiscal year 2026. And in regards to NASA, it is a true earthquake.

Goodbye to SLS. The huge and very expensive lunar rocket SLS of the NASA, whose development has led the Boeing spatial division for 14 years, will be removed after the Artemis III mission, scheduled for 2027. There will be no block 1B version, and therefore the ML-2 mobile launch tower (whose budget had been sentenced) will be presumably without using.

Justification is economical. The own Budget document Openly criticizes the SLS, noting that it has a cost of 4,000 million dollars per launch and has exceeded its budget by 140%. Demolish figures that not only They have sentenced the heir to the legacy Apollo and space transforders, but to all NASA’s lunar architecture.

Goodbye to Orion and Lunar Gateway. Designed to launch aboard the SLS, the Lockheed Martin’s space capsule now has the same expiration date: it will be removed after taking astronauts to the lunar orbit in the Artemis II and Artemis III missions. NASA will choose a more modern and affordable architecture for Artemis IV onwards.

But the cuts do not stop here. The Lunar Gateway Space Station, a key international project in the now truncated plans of the Artemis program, is also canceled. This leaves NASA’s international partners in a very delicate position that participated in the station: the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan (Jaxa), Canada (CSA) and United Arab Emirates.

ESA, which supplies the European Ship Module Orion and develops The I-Hab and Esprit modules of Lunar Gatewaysee how your investment and astronaut places (including a seat to travel for the first time to the lunar surface) are in the air. As Daniel Marín points out in Eurekathe “ugly” to the partners is considerable. Especially to Europe.

The bet: commercial ships and Mars. According to a NASA statement, the objective of these cuts is “to accelerate human exploration to the moon and Mars with a tax portfolio.” In other words, the blank checks for usual partners of the space agency are over.

The White House wants to “return to the moon before China and put an American on Mars.” The budget allocates more than 7,000 million dollars to lunar exploration, but focused on “next generation commercial systems, more profitable” to replace the SLS/ORion architecture. Starship/HLS of Spacex and New Glenn/Blue Moon of Blue Origin have, as is logical, many ballots.

The budget also introduces an investment of 1,000 million dollars to start a program focused on Mars. Although the details are scarce, it is taken for granted that will also pivot the SLS to the Spacex Starship, following Elon Musk’s vision. However, it is a very long -term bet, with little chances of seeing fruits before the current presidential mandate ends.

Less science, less flights to ISS. The budget is especially devastating for NASA’s Space Science Division, which suffers a cut of 2,265 million dollars. The Mars Sample Return mission is explicitly canceled to recover the Martian soil samples from Rover Perseverance, arguing that the same objective will be achieved with future manned missions.

Emblematic projects such as the new Nancy Grace Roman (which is almost finished), the historic Hubble space telescope and even, According to Eric Berger of Ars TechnicaNASA’s participation in the Rosalind Franklin European mission.

The International Space Station, although it will remain operational until 2030, is not fought. NASA will reduce the size of the American crew and on-board research (-508 million budget), decreasing “significantly” loading and crew flights, gradually leaving the low terrestrial orbit in the hands of commercial stations (and China).

A cycle change. While the proposal has yet to go through Congress, the Republican majority makes it difficult to take great modifications, although programs such as SLS/ORION have important support within the giant lobby as Boeing.

The big question is whether this bet will work to win the space race against China. The abrupt cancellation of the SLS could leave a vacuum that China would take the opportunity to establish a sustained lunar presence before commercial alternatives are ready.

And it is that getting to the Moon is not easy for private companies, as the failed launches of the NASA Clps program have demonstrated. Needless to say how risky it is to bet on an accelerated arrival to Mars.

Image | POT

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