NASA on track to RETURN to the Moon with Mars mission on the ‘horizon’ despite Trump cuts

With an overall budget of $21billion (£15billion) it keeps the space agency on track to achieve that goal in what Mr Bridenstine described as one of the “strongest budgets on record for our storied agency”.

While Mr Bridenstine confirmed that reaching the Moon again could come as soon as 2019, with this new budget he revealed that by 2028, NASA could be completely operation on the lunar surface.

He said: “The President has given us Space Policy Directive 1, which says to go back to the moon, and we’re going to do that in short order — maybe even in 2019, but at least by 2020 — with commercial lunar payload services that are going to be funded through the Science Mission Directorate.

“Beginning with a series of small commercial delivery missions to the Moon as early as this year, we will use new landers, robots and eventually humans by 2028 to conduct science across the entire lunar surface.”

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