In a flashy “Ignition” event today, NASA firmly recommitted itself to returning astronauts to the Moon, while fleshing out its vision for what administrator Jared Isaacman referred to as “president Trump’s Moon base” during an interview with Fox News.“NASA is committed to achieving the near‑impossible once again, to return to the Moon before the end of President Trump’s term, build a Moon base, establish an enduring presence, and do the other things needed to ensure American leadership in space,” Isaacman added in an official statement.The news comes just under a month after NASA significantly reshuffled the upcoming launches of its Artemis program. The significant reframing saw its Artemis 3 mission transformed from a lunar landing attempt into a test of its Human Landing Systems spacecraft in low-Earth orbit, with Artemis 4 and 5, both lunar landing attempts, being moved to some time in 2028.And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of the agency’s newly-announced plans. As part of the agency’s announcement today, Isaacman touted “frequent robotic landings” and a “nearly monthly cadence of equipment and rovers with scientific payloads landing on the Moon” starting as soon as next year.Summary of the new 10-year plan. pic.twitter.com/TBjQXPTmtG— Marcia Smith (@SpcPlcyOnline) March 24, 2026A neatly summarized graphic NASA showed off during its presentation today shows the vast extent of the agency’s ambitions. Categorized into three phases spanning the next ten years, NASA is planning to send as many as ten spacecraft to the Moon in 2027 alone. In 2028, the agency is looking to launch four landers, three rovers, and four drones, across a total of 12 rocket launches.To put those dates into perspective, NASA has only started to reach the lunar surface with small commercially-built landers — with varying degrees of success — decades after the conclusion of its historic Apollo program. It’s also still years away from landing humans on the Moon.During a dizzying run-through of the agency’s plans, NASA’s newly-minted Moon Base program executive Carlos Garcia-Galan elaborated on the armada of planned launches.In the first phase, spread out across 25 rocket launches and over 8,000 pounds of payloads between now and the end of 2028, NASA is hoping to establish “high-rate, reliable surface access” and a “ground truth for Moon Base landing sites.” The second phase, which spans 2028 to 2032, includes 27 launches, seven rovers, and over 120,000 pounds of payload. The phase will see NASA securing sites for its base while working to “establish initial lunar infrastructure,” demonstrate technologies to “enable lunar permanence” — alongside two crewed missions per year.Finally, phase three is designed to “enable long-duration and -distance human exploration,” prepare the site of the base, and make “routine logistics deliveries from Earth.” Between 2033 and 2036, NASA is looking to launch 29 rockets to the Moon, including four rovers, and over 300,000 pounds of payload, including habitats, logistics, power generators, and scientific equipment.“In total, when you rack and stack the three phases, this is what you end up with,” Garcia-Galan told the crowd, showing off a detailed graphical summary. “So it’s pretty impressive. Equally challenging.”“Remember, trying to achieve the near-impossible here,” he reminded the audience.Onlookers were stunned after the onslaught of information.“Trying to follow this is like drinking from a firehose,” tweeted SpacePolicyOnline journalist Marcia Smith. “Not sure what to make of it. ‘Aspirational?'”“Goodness me,” NASASpaceflight‘s official X account wrote in its tweet commenting on the full manifest.Others were left far more impressed.“I’ve been waiting literally decades for NASA to articulate a plan for a Moon base,” Ars Technica‘s Eric Berger wrote. “Now Carlos Garcia-Galan is doing a masterful job of precisely this. Dozens of landings. Drones. RTGs. Rovers. Habitats. Excavators. This is incredible stuff.”But whether we should take NASA at its word, particularly when it comes to its aggressive timelines, remains debatable. Simply sending a crew of astronauts around the Moon and back as part of its Artemis 2 mission, which NASA is still hoping to launch as soon as next week, has been marred by setbacks and delays.In its quest to build out a permanent presence on the Moon, NASA is planning to lean heavily on its private partners, leveraging its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which was designed to contract companies to develop robotic lunar landers and rovers.The agency is also looking to shed plenty of weight by abandoning its plans to develop a Lunar Gateway, a space station in the Moon’s orbit originally intended to be a stepping stone for future space explorers.It’s also planning to ditch its long-delayed and over-budget Space Launch System after Artemis 5, its second landing attempt currently slated for “late 2028.” Instead, it’s looking to “incorporate more commercially procured and reusable hardware to undertake frequent and affordable crewed missions to the lunar surface,” according to the agency’s announcement.Presumably waiting in the wings is the agency’s existing Human Landing Systems partner, SpaceX, whose Starship rocket is being tapped for its attempts to land the first astronauts on the lunar surface in over 50 years.However, whether Starship will be ready to jump into action, even just for NASA’s low-Earth orbit test as part of its Artemis 3 mission next year, remains uncertain.In short, NASA’s plans for its Moon base are wildly ambitious and set the degree of difficulty enormously high. The agency’s announcement presupposes the development of a vast array of technologies — from “MoonFall” drones to an enormous pressurized RV — that don’t exist yet and could potentially take significantly longer to realize than the agency may be anticipating.In other words, while Isaacman suggested his agency was looking to construct “president Trump’s Moon base,” it’s looking exceedingly unlikely that such a base will materialize before the end of Trump’s presidency — or possibly even during the 79-year-old’s lifetime.It’s a possibility NASA is seemingly aware of as its ambitions for the next ten years, which will see it rely heavily on its commercial and international partners, continue to come into focus.“The Moon base will not appear overnight,” Isaacman admitted in a publicized note to NASA staffers.More on NASA’s announcements: NASA Announces Nuclear Mission to Mars by 2028The post NASA Announces Gigantic Armada of Moon Launches to “Build President Trump’s Moon Base,” Starting Next Year appeared first on Futurism.