In a Tuesday statement, White House officials said that President Obama would like NASA to commence work on building a new heavy-lift rocket – for taking astronauts to the Moon, Mars, and other deep-space destinations - earlier than the timeline foreseen under the agency’s now-annulled Constellation program.

According to the information forwarded by a White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, NASA would earmark a $3.1-billion spending, over the next five-year period, on research and development of the heavy-lift rocket; and a final decision on the rocket’s design would be made in 2015.

Obama, whose February proposal called for the cancellation of NASA’s Constellation program for developing rockets and spacecraft for a return to the moon by 2020, will announce the details of his space policy at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on April 15.

The revised NASA plan by Obama will largely be directing the space agency to focus on building rocket systems for taking US astronauts into deep space as well as for helping entrepreneurs get into the space business. The proposals will allow construction of a new rocket to begin two years ahead of the Constellation program’s schedule.

Commenting on the revised heavy-lift rocket plan, a senior White House official said: “This is a rocket that is going to happen two years earlier than would've happened under the past program.”