Will NASA lose because of Trump as China-Russia sign deal for nuclear power station on moon?

Russia and China have signed a deal to build a nuclear power station on the Moon. The memorandum of cooperation on building a lunar power plant was inked earlier this month. Notably, Russia will provide the reactor to power the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). Plans about the station have been in the works for a few years now, and it is estimated to be ready by 2036.

It will be jointly led by China and Russia, according to a memorandum of cooperation signed by the two nations. A total of 17 countries have become part of the program.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, announced in a statement on May 8, "The station will conduct fundamental space research and test technology for long-term uncrewed operations of the ILRS, with the prospect of a human being's presence on the Moon."

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Meanwhile, NASA's plans to send humans to the Moon as part of the Artemis mission seem to be in the doldrums following massive budget cuts by the Trump administration. A total of $879 million has been removed from NASA's funds, as the space agency has been told to phase out several of its programs.

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The lunar power station will be a permanent, manned base located on the moon's south pole.

Yury Borisov, the director general of Roscosmos, said in a 2024 interview with Russian state-owned news site TASS that the Chinese-Russian reactor will be built "without the presence of humans." He added that the technology to do so is in place, although he did not provide details about it.

Chang'e-8 mission will land a human on the moon

The ball for the lunar power station will be set rolling by China in 2028 with its Chang'e-8 mission that will attempt to land an astronaut on the lunar surface, a first for China.

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In June 2021, China and Russia first announced to the world they would construct a lunar base. Parts for the station will be transferred to the moon over a period of six years, from 2030 to 2035. China's future plans include building a space station orbiting the moon and connecting it to a nuclear power station.

Lunar space station, lunar vehicles and more

The base would also be linked to two other nodes - one at the equator and the other on the far side of the moon, Wu Yanhua, the chief designer of China's deep exploration project, informed the media in 2024. Scientists are targeting completion of this extension by the year 2050. The ambitious program will include "lunar-Earth and high-speed lunar surface communication networks, as well as lunar vehicles like a hopper, an unmanned long-range vehicle, and pressurized and unpressurized manned rovers."

China has become extremely active in the space realm in the past few years. It has landed several rovers on the moon, besides the Zhurong rover on Mars. With Chang'e-6 mission, China successfully got back the first-ever lunar samples from the Moon's far side in June 2024. It also has plans to return samples from Mars soon.