WASHINGTON – NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said he expected to provide details in the coming weeks about several agency priorities, including lunar exploration and commercial space stations.
In a recent interview, Isaacman said how the agency plans to move forward with several key programs will be announced after NASA responds to the White House executive order on space policy issued in December.
The order’s instructions include a plan to “achieve the policy objectives in this order with respect to leading the world in space exploration and expanding human access and U.S. presence in space”, as well as separate guidance for a “National Initiative for U.S. Space Nuclear Energy.” The policy also includes instructions related to procurement review and acquisition reforms.
The order came as NASA was already working on new initiatives, such as the Fission Surface Energy Program to develop nuclear reactors to support lunar operations, as well as proposed changes to the Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development, or CLD, program to support commercial space stations that would succeed the International Space Station. Those efforts also include the ongoing procurement of lunar rovers for future Artemis missions.
Many of those programs have been put on hold in recent weeks as industry awaits new requests or contract awards with little information from NASA.
“This notice is to advise you that NASA procurement activities will continue as the Agency works to align acquisition timelines with national space policy and broader operational objectives,” NASA said in a Jan. 28 update on the CLD program. “You should expect that additional clarity will be provided regarding procurement milestones in the coming weeks.” NASA issued a similar notice for the Fission Surface Energy program on the same day.
Isaacman said the agency is currently focusing on responding to the executive order. “Even though some of these programs may have been running before, we have a national space policy which is an executive order,” he said. “We have a timeline to get back to communicating, and that’s approaching soon.”
For those interested in the affected programs, he said, “We will communicate this immediately after we submit our response to the executive order.” He said in a January 30 interview that it should be “about a month from now.”
Those topics will remain priorities, he said. “I think the US is going to start work on nuclear power before the end of 2028, and we will share details on this soon.”
Industry officials have had mixed reactions to the disruption in plans for programs such as commercial space stations and lunar nuclear reactors.
“I think this is a huge acquisition for him during the first few years of his tenure as administrator, and I think it’s important that he take a pretty critical look at it,” Axiom Space Chairman and CEO Jonathan Surtain said of Isaacman and the CLD program during a Feb. 12 call with reporters about the company’s new funding round.
Others are less patient. Speaking on the background of the fission surface energy program, an industry official said, “It’s a case of hurry up and wait.” The companies moved quickly to respond to NASA’s announcement last summer about the initiative, providing responses to two draft requests while preparing the final version, but have received little in the way of updates since December, the official said.
msr uncertainty
There is less certainty about plans for Mars Sample Return, or MSR. Congress did not provide funding for the MSR in its final spending bill for fiscal year 2026, but did allocate money for technologies that could be used for future Mars missions.
“With almost clarity now on the human exploration focus on the Moon, we can free up some of our resources to consider how we will go and get samples to Mars,” Isaacman said. “The first step is to close the old program.”
He said he would examine alternative proposals for the MSR submitted to NASA in 2024. At the end of the Biden administration, NASA said it would continue to study two approaches: one based on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s concept and the other using uncrewed commercial landers.
“We have to look at it and see which of them, if any, are cost-effective and can be achieved in a reasonable time period,” Isaacman said. “If not, we have to improvise and think about what is the alternative approach to this.”
He said he is interested in returning samples collected by the Perseverance rover to Earth, some of which may contain evidence of past Martian life.
Asked about the status of the MSR during a press conference on February 13 after the Crew-12 launch, he said, “Am I interested in bringing those samples back? You bet.” “This is the most consequential discovery opportunity in human history.”
