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<\/p>\nNASA is adding a spacecraft docking test to its Artemis lunar program before the planned landing of its first astronauts on the Moon in over half a century.<\/p>\n
It is part of an overhaul of the flagship US Moon effort, amid mounting delays and competitive pressure from China.<\/p>\n
The new Artemis mission in Earth’s orbit, planned for 2027 and involving lunar landers from Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, was one of many Moon program changes announced by NASA chief and billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman on Friday, local time.<\/p>\n
It comes as China inches closer to its own 2030 crewed Moon landing goal, and as US safety experts warn more testing is needed before NASA makes its crewed attempt to land on the Moon, now planned as Artemis IV in 2028.<\/p>\n
“We all have arrived at the point that this is really the only pathway in order to achieve success with a lunar landing within the time-frames that we are targeting,” Mr Isaacman told reporters on Friday, stressing a need to move faster and minimise delays with various spacecraft involved in the program.<\/p>\n
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Jared Isaacman at a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center. (Reuters: Joe Skipper)<\/p>\n
As part of the updated Artemis III mission, NASA’s Orion astronaut capsule will demonstrate its ability to dock with one or both of the lunar landers in low-Earth orbit. The process is a crucial juncture in the agency’s path to the Moon.<\/p>\n
The space agency also cancelled an effort to upgrade its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to instead focus on increasing that rocket’s production and flight rate, which has been slow relative to newer rockets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The move impacts Boeing’s roughly $US2 billion ($2.8 billion) contract to build a more powerful SLS upper stage, current plans for which have been cancelled.<\/p>\n
Those moves, Mr Isaacman said, would help the SLS achieve a flight rate of at least one launch per year and enable yearly missions to the Moon, speeding up a launch cadence that currently stands at one launch every two or three years.<\/p>\n