NASA Halts $100 Million HALO Work as Moon Base Shift Sinks Gateway Module
Updated
Updated · Ars Technica · Jun 18
NASA Halts $100 Million HALO Work as Moon Base Shift Sinks Gateway Module
1 articles · Updated · Ars Technica · Jun 18
Summary
Paragon Space Development was told last week to stop work on HALO, the Lunar Gateway habitation module, signaling NASA is unlikely to fold the spacecraft into its new Moon-base architecture.
The halt follows NASA’s March decision to pivot from an orbital station to a surface base and pause Gateway, while repurposing the Power and Propulsion Element for a deep-space nuclear-electric demonstration.
HALO is a 6.1-meter pressurized module where visiting astronauts would have spent most of their time; Paragon won a contract worth more than $100 million in 2022 to build its life-support system.
Northrop Grumman holds $1.1 billion in NASA contracts to design, build and integrate HALO with the propulsion element, and had lobbied to preserve the module after the strategy change.