recent updates<\/a> about the Artemis missions. Hardware for Artemis III is on track, with processing timelines sharply reduced by about half. NASA also redesigned, built, and tested a critical fuel-line component in-house in five months, at roughly a tenth of the cost of an earlier outside-vendor estimate.<\/p>\n\u201cNASA should be expected to do this kind of work, and we have some of the best technical knowledge in the world on rocket hardware and operations to do it,\u201d said Jeremy Parsons, the agency\u2019s Artemis program manager. \u201cIt\u2019s an example of how we are rebuilding our core competencies and developing centers of excellence in technical functions instead of continuing to outsource expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the agency\u2019s Artemis IV mission in 2028, astronauts will launch aboard Orion on the SLS rocket from NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA is working with SpaceX and Blue Origin to develop lunar landers to carry those astronauts to the Moon\u2019s surface. Both companies have redesigned their approaches to simplify the missions and make them more efficient and flexible as compared to previous mission designs.<\/p>\n
SpaceX\u2019s Starship will refuel in Earth orbit, rendezvous with Orion, and then carry the spacecraft toward the Moon. Blue Origin\u2019s approach involves transfer stages in Earth orbit to push its Blue Moon Mark 2 lander toward the Moon, where it will meet Orion in a closer lunar orbit before descending to the surface.<\/p>\n
Both SpaceX and Blue Origin are targeting to be able to support a crewed lunar landing in 2028.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Artemis IV, NASA is pursuing two upper-stage options for the SLS rocket: its current stage, the interim cryogenic propulsion stage; and a stretched version of ULA\u2019s Centaur V which can carry more propellant. Pursuing both options ensures NASA is maintaining flexibility and preventing single-point dependency.<\/p>\n
NASA also announced plans with spacesuit provider Axiom Space to develop a second, lighter suit design called the \u201cSortie suit\u201d to enable the first moonwalks. The Sortie suit will not replace Axiom\u2019s primary suit, which will be used for longer, more demanding missions in the future. The Sortie suit is roughly half the weight of the larger suit and lets NASA move faster on the earliest surface missions.<\/p>\n
As part of a Golden Age of innovation and exploration, NASA will send Artemis astronauts on increasingly difficult missions at the lunar South Pole to explore more of the Moon than ever before. In addition to providing economic benefits and advancing scientific discovery through its Moon missions, NASA will establish an enduring human presence on the lunar surface and build on the agency\u2019s foundation for the first crewed mission to Mars.
Learn more about Artemis:<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/artemis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an update on Oct. 23, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and other agency leaders shared the agency\u2019s path…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[2305,13265,96180,13266,61,60,7496,82,247,12610],"class_list":["post-675264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-artemis","tag-artemis-3","tag-artemis-4","tag-human-landing-system-program","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-marshall-space-flight-center","tag-science","tag-space","tag-space-launch-system-sls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}