By Kurtis Archer | 2026-06-16

In a major strategic pivot, the United States is aggressively redirecting its space investments toward securing the space domain and establishing a permanent human presence on the moon.

Leveraging NASA’s ambitious Artemis program and a rapidly expanding web of commercial space partnerships, the US has set a goal of attracting at least $50 billion in new market investment by 2028.

This geopolitical and economic shift is transitioning the world's preeminent space superpower away from temporary and government-led expeditions towards a sustained and commercialized space economy.

By including international allies, commercial enterprises and advanced defensive technology in the foundational architecture of space exploration, the US and its partners are building a long-term and resilient ecosystem.

The model for lunar exploration has evolved from the Apollo era's centralized, public sector approach into a multi-layered ecosystem in which NASA now defines requirements, as a customer.

Private companies design and operate hardware under fixed-price contracts, and international partners contribute specialized modules and equipment.

This collaborative shift aims to create a more distributed, cost-effective, rapid and resilient system, according to an April 16 Atlantic Council analysis.

As Atlantic Council GeoTech Center nonresident senior fellow Dan Hart puts it: "Landing on the moon and planting a flag has major symbolic value, but scientific leadership has a longer-lasting effect on US leadership."

International contributions

Modern space architecture sidesteps the single-nation burden of the Apollo era, relying instead on integrated international contributions that offer partner nations a direct stake in the new space economy.

Making key contributions to NASA's Artemis program, for example, are the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Italy's space agency (ASI).

ASI is leading the development of multi-purpose habitats, which will serve as the foundational surface structures for long-duration lunar stays, securing future opportunities for at least one Italian astronaut to walk on the moon.

And JAXA is developing a pressurized lunar rover that will serve as a mobile habitat, allowing astronauts to explore the lunar surface for weeks at a time without spacesuits.

In exchange for JAXA's contribution, two Japanese astronauts will land on the moon in future missions.

"America no longer will walk on the moon alone," then-NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in an April 2024 statement announcing the deal with JAXA.

"With this new rover, we will uncover groundbreaking discoveries on the lunar surface that will benefit humanity and inspire the Artemis generation."

Following the return of the Artemis II astronauts, NASA administrator Jared Isaacman reaffirmed the US space agency's commitment to international collaboration, highlighting the mission as an example of global cooperation.

He commended the US and Canadian crew for showing the world "what America is capable of and our international cooperation is capable of."

The primary physical architecture of the Artemis program consists of the US-built Space Launch System rocket and the Orion crew capsule, which will continue to sustain astronauts during future lunar voyages.

But the European Space Agency (ESA) is responsible for the European Service Module, the critical component that propels Orion out of Earth's orbit and supplies the crew with essential water, oxygen, and thermal regulation.

Because the ESA will deliver this module for every upcoming crewed flight, international partnership is a core and irreplaceable requirement for the program's success.

Starlab's collaborative model

Outside the formal Artemis framework, Airbus (Europe), Voyager Space (US), and Mitsubishi Corporation (Japan) have partnered to build Starlab.

Starlab is a commercial low Earth orbit (LEO) space station designed to succeed the International Space Station (ISS), which will be decommissioned in 2030.

The joint international venture will support microgravity research, commercial manufacturing and astronaut missions.

"Together our teams are focused on creating an unmatched space destination both technologically and as a business operation," said Airbus head of space systems Jean-Marc Nasr, noting the importance of international partnerships.

"It’s very important in the commercial world to have good long-term partnerships and less of a vendor transactional relationship," said Voyager Space president Matthew Kuta of the decision to form the joint venture.

This type of collaborative model provides geopolitical and economic benefits: Billions in government funding are funneled into the aerospace sectors of partner nations. Astronauts are guaranteed seats on historic lunar and orbital missions.

And collaborations accelerate global innovation and establish shared and interoperable technical baselines.

Sustainable infrastructure

NASA in March announced it was pausing development of its Lunar Gateway orbital space station to prioritize its "Ignition" program, which is designed to establish a US-led base on the moon’s surface.

Though details are not yet clear, there is an assumption that nations that were contributing to the Gateway project, including Canada, Japan and the United Arab Emirates, will play a role NASA’s new approach for the return to the moon.

With Ignition, NASA aims to establish a continuous human presence on the moon through a three-phase strategy.

The first phase focuses on increasing mission frequency and testing foundational surface technologies using commercial deliveries and uncrewed rovers.

The second introduces semi-habitable facilities, regular logistics, and major international contributions like Japan's pressurized rover to support routine crewed operations.

And the third will use heavy-cargo landing systems to deploy permanent infrastructure, such as Italy's habitats and Canada's lunar utility vehicles.

Under the new US strategy, investment has shifted away from single-use hardware toward heavy, scalable infrastructure capable of supporting continuous commercial and scientific operations.

NASA’s strategy leverages massive commercial launch and landing capabilities.

Programs like the human landing system (HLS), using SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon, are designed to deliver tons of cargo, scientific payloads, and habitats to the lunar surface.

This high-mass capability is needed to build a self-sustaining lunar base.

Simultaneously, NASA is funding private astronaut missions to LEO and supporting commercial space station developers.

By transitioning from being ISS owner-operator to just one of many customers in a commercial LEO marketplace, the US government frees up billions in capital to fund deep-space infrastructure.

Space domain awareness

As space becomes a bustling economic zone, it also becomes a contested military domain.

In this environment, infrastructure resilience calls for a sophisticated, automated defensive envelope to counter adversarial threats such as electronic warfare, anti-satellite weapons, and orbital espionage.

Traditional ground-based tracking is no longer sufficient, and the US is investing heavily in autonomous, orbital monitoring platforms such as True Anomaly’s Jackal autonomous orbital vehicle.

These systems leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to maneuver rapidly, track suspect assets, and provide real-time, high-fidelity tactical data on adversary movements.

AI algorithms process vast amounts of telemetry and orbital data to predict potential collisions, orbital aggressive maneuvers, and space debris threats.

Modern space assets are essentially flying data centers.

New investments prioritize zero-trust architecture and encrypted, decentralized mesh networks to prevent cyber-hijacking or communication jamming of critical lunar and LEO infrastructure.

By distributing capabilities across a robust web of commercial vendors and international allies, the US avoids single points of failure: If one commercial partner faces a setback, another can step in.

Protecting this vast economic web with AI-driven space domain awareness also ensures the infrastructure remains secure from adversarial disruption.