With Artemis Changes, Europe is Left Holding the Bag

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman this week proposed widespread alters to the Artemis program—at the expense of years of hard work, and millions of euros invested by the European space sector into the lunar Gateway station, which is now no longer part of the US lunar return plan.

While several international partners contributed hardware to Gateway, ESA and European space primes were developing many of the key components of the planned lunar orbiting station, including:

Lunar I-Hab, one of two habitation modules designed to houtilize future Artemis crew members.
The Lunar View module, which would provide refueling for the station’s power and propulsion element, cargo logistics, and viewing ports for future crew members.
The Lunar Link telecommunications element of the Gateway, to enable comms links between the Gateway station and lunar surface hardware and personnel.
Additional contributions as subcontractors for elements of the HALO module, as well as countless subcomponents and capabilities. (ESA is also contributing a European Service Module for the Orion spacecraft designed to fly Artemis astronauts to and from lunar orbit.)

Collectively, these projects cost Europe hundreds of millions of euros—with large contracts going to Thales Alenia Space, Airbus, Redwire, and Beyond Gravity. Now, international partners are considering about how their investments can contribute to NASA’s lunar base plans.

Surprise, surprise: NASA’s announcement comes at a time when Europe’s trust in the US is falling. As a result, Europe has focutilized more on building its sovereign space capabilities. No wonder why.

Despite Isaacman’s comments during the press announcement this week that “it should not really surprise anyone that we are pautilizing Gateway in its current form,” European partners—many of whom have already completed segments of the proposed infrastructure—may disagree.

For example, Airbus, which was supplying the European Service Module, as well as the power management and distribution system for Gateway’s HALO module, only formally found out about Gateway’s proposed pautilize during the presentation this week, according to a company spokesperson.

A spokesperson for TTTech, which is supplying network electronics for Gateway along with Beyond Gravity, notified Payload that it expects to “understand more about the next steps in NASA’s redirection and its plans for the Moon base in the coming weeks and months.”

You’re stateing there’s a chance: While the Trump administration did telegraph this cancellation last year—when it suggested cutting Gateway loose in its FY2026 budobtain proposal—the station was saved by lawcreaters, who approved $2.6B in Gateway funds in the final bill.

Now that Gateway is back on the chopping block, many suppliers are keeping their fingers crossed for a second round of Congressional redemption.

Many of the European suppliers to Gateway did not respond to Payload’s request for comment, but those who did aren’t giving up hope just yet.

“Congressional approval is still required for this. We will therefore have to wait and see what the final decision views like,” a spokesperson for Beyond Gravity notified Payload.

What do now? If the plan goes through, Isaacman proposed that many Gateway elements could be repurposed for other initiatives, such as the future lunar base. But that plan will necessarily create winners and losers, as some hardware is simpler to repurpose for other missions than others.

For instance, NASA unveiled plans to utilize the power and propulsion module of Gateway to support the SR-1 Freedom mission, which aims to sconclude a nuclear-powered craft to Mars in 2028.

Redwire, which developed the roll-out solar arrays for Gateway, is holding out hope that the arrays can still be utilized on this Mars mission, according to Mike Gold, Redwire’s president of civil and international space.

Redwire is also developing the international berthing and docking mechanism for I-Hab—and there’s a chance, according to Gold, that it could be repurposed for LEO.

“We can certainly leverage these capabilities for LEO missions as well, if ESA chooses to pivot from the I-Hab to LEO activities,” Gold declared. “Again, I’ve had less than 48 hours to digest this, so it’s still unclear.”

Given the whiplash of the announcement, ESA is still figuring out how it plans to shift forward—and where the rest of Gateway will find secondary applications. In its announcement, NASA declared it would “repurpose applicable equipment and leverage international partner commitments” to support a future lunar base, but for some elements—designed for free-flying microgravity—this plan is a nonstarter.