The Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama will become the headquarters of the agency´s next program, which aims to build a Ruda rocket to the moon again by 2024, NASA Director Jim Pridenstein said Friday.
Pridenstein made the announcement at the facility with state deputies. The announcement, which is likely to create jobs and raise the state´s profile, has frustrated Texas lawmakers who have sought to choose their state as the seat of the program.
"The landing system will be here at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama," Pridenstein said.
"Now I say that the decision has not been taken in a vacuum," he said, referring to the Marshall Center´s history of building the Apollo spacecraft 50 years ago, and Texas lawmakers sought to push NASA to choose the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The new moon mission, likely to cost $ 20 billion to $ 30 billion in five years, comes as NASA, with the help of private partners, is seeking to resume manned space missions from the US for the first time since the space shuttle program ended in 2011.
