The controversial US president is expected to sign the ‘Space Policy Directive 1’ that will give NASA orders to “lead an innovative space exploration program to send American astronauts back to the Moon, and eventually Mars”, according to the White House.
The farthest humans have travelled from Earth in recent decades is the International Space Station, and the last time astronauts left Earth’s low orbit and reached the Moon was in 1972 – the last of NASA’s six moon landings.
Now, the US is gearing up to send men back to the Moon, and eventually Mars shortly afterwards.
The initiative is the first space-based directive of the Trump administration and will be signed at the White House later today.
Earlier in the year, Vice President Mike Pence seemed to confirm the current Government wants to send people back to the moon, using it as a stop-off for a mission to Mars.
He said at the National Space Council in October: “We will return American astronauts to the moon, not only to leave behind footprints and flags, but to build the foundation we need to send Americans to Mars and beyond.”
The initiative is likely to include plans for the ‘Deep Space Gateway’ – a collaboration between the US and Russia to create a lunar space station that will act as a “gateway to deep space”.
The NASA-led program will see the two space agencies build a lunar satellite much like the International Space Station (ISS) that can home astronauts and will orbit the moon.
The station will allow astronauts to study the moon in close detail and will also be used a pit-stop for astronauts travelling farther out into the solar system, particularly Mars.
The agreement between NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos was signed at a space congress in Adelaide in September, and the US group said the crewed lunar orbiter will act as a “gateway to deep space and the lunar surface.”
Construction is set to begin on the project in 2022, with the first modules of the Deep Space Gateway envisioned to be completed two years later.