But don’t count on it.
“While NASA and its contractors have made progress, completing several important milestones, they still face multiple challenges in developing advanced spacesuits and space transportation systems. ”, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report. recent audit of the mission. As a result, takeoff is “unlikely to occur in 2025.”
GAO auditors expect the launch date to be in early 2027 if development proceeds according to NASA’s normal schedule. NASA is currently on an “ambitious schedule that is 13 months shorter than average,” GAO wrote. “The complexity of human spaceflight suggests that it is unrealistic to expect program development to be completed more than a year faster than the average for NASA’s major projects, the majority of which are not human spaceflight projects. NASA had hoped to move forward faster than usual, but GAO said the program was “achieving important milestones at a slow pace.”
In fact, a 2027 launch would bring it closer to NASA’s original goal of 2028. That was before March 2019, when under President Donald Trump, “the White House directed NASA to accelerate its moon landing program to 2024.” “In part, it’s to create a sense of urgency to get American astronauts back to the moon.”
In November 2021, NASA postponed the landing until at least 2025. The space agency stated: Artemis III The project will be the first mission to the moon’s south pole, and will “land the first woman and first person of color on the moon,” although selection will be based on the suitability of the crew for the mission. He said he would be killed. So far, all 12 moonwalkers have been white American men.
NASA has not officially announced any schedule changes, but acknowledged the possibility in an email to The Washington Post. The agency said it is working with partners to “develop a timeline for the path to Artemis III.” … All contractors and partners for Artemis’s various elements must deliver on time for mission success and the agency’s exploration goals. ”
This is a very complex project. A variety of complications can prevent on-time air travel from one city to the next, but that’s nothing compared to moving the crew 338,855 miles away into inhumane conditions. It’s not something I did.
“The Artemis III mission is part of a series of increasingly complex missions to maintain U.S. leadership in space exploration, build a sustainable lunar presence over the next decade, and ultimately reach Mars. third,” the GAO said.
Just as today’s cars are more complex than the cars of half a century ago, so too are today’s moon landing operations. This includes the astronaut’s lunar suit and the human landing system that transports the crew from the spacecraft to the lunar surface. President Biden’s budget request calls for a five-year cost of $12.4 billion for both.
In addition to the ambitious schedule, the GAO report cited the following reasons for the delay:
● Delay of “important events”. This includes the destruction of a SpaceX vehicle that is central to the moon mission. The vehicle “began disintegrating approximately four minutes into the flight after the vehicle deviated from its expected trajectory, lost altitude, and began to overturn” during a lunar orbit flight test. April. Eight of the 13 key events in the development of the landing system were delayed by 6 to 13 months.
● Much work remains, including how to “transfer propellant to storage in space before transferring it to human landing systems.” …SpaceX has made limited progress in maturing the technology necessary to support this aspect of the plan. ” SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, did not respond to a request for comment.
● Design challenges. Spacesuit contractor Axiom is also facing serious problems. “For example, NASA’s original design did not provide the minimum emergency life support needed for the Artemis III mission,” GAO said. “As a result, Axiom representatives said they may have to redesign certain parts of the spacesuit, which could delay delivery to the mission.”
Axiom Vice President Russell Ralston said in an email that the company is “actively working to innovate the spacesuit technology needed to sustain 60 minutes of emergency lifesaving.” As the report notes, this is future work and may take more time. ”
These concerns are not new. In August 2021, Documented by NASA’s Office of Inspector General Space suit development has been delayed, and it is said that work will be completed by then. The two new spacesuit systems, called outboard maneuver units, which include the hardware that connects astronauts to the spacecraft, include: “NASA will spend more than $1 billion to develop and assemble next-generation spacesuits.” The current model has undergone renovations and some design changes, but it is still more than 45 years old.
Because of the delay, GAO said it would “take NASA a relatively short amount of time to ensure ‘all safety requirements are met’ before the mission begins.”
Artemis III’s delay is not surprising to John M. Logsdon, the longtime founder and former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. GAO’s audit “reflects a fairly broad sentiment in the space community that it will take a series of miracles to meet the 2025 deadline,” he said. “There are too many things that have to go right for that to be possible.”
It added: “Delays are part of the general pattern of the program.”
NASA’s Moon to Mars program currently includes seven Artemis missions through 2031. The time schedule of each mission depends on previous missions. Artemis I and Artemis II were behind schedule. Artemis III inherited their habit of being late. In September 2022, Gao was found “NASA has postponed the Artemis mission deadline and key program milestones several times. … The Artemis I launch delay will have a cascading effect on the Artemis II and III mission schedules. Because a minimum amount of time is required between these missions. NASA has also postponed the Artemis II mission to May 2024, 13 months later than its original April 2023 launch date.”
But if all the kinks are ironed out, “this mission will lead to a future where humans have continuous access to the moon.” NASA predicted“And humanity’s planetary exploration mission is within reach.”