As part of a Golden\u202fAge of exploration and discovery,\u202fNASA announced Friday the agency is increasing its cadence of missions under the Artemis program to achieve the national objective of returning American astronauts to the Moon and establishing an enduring presence. This includes standardizing vehicle configuration, adding an additional mission\u202fin 2027, and\u202fundertaking at least one surface landing every year thereafter.<\/p>\n
As teams prepare to launch Artemis II in the weeks ahead, the Artemis III mission, now in 2027, will be designed to test out systems and operational capabilities in low Earth orbit to prepare for an Artemis IV landing in 2028. This new mission will endeavor to include a rendezvous and docking\u202fwith\u202fone or both\u202fcommercial landers\u202ffrom SpaceX and Blue Origin, in-space tests of the docked vehicles, integrated checkout of life support, communications, and propulsion systems, as well as tests of the new Extravehicular Activity (xEVA) suits. NASA will further define this test flight after completing detailed reviews between NASA and our industry partners. The agency will share the specific objectives for the updated Artemis III mission in the near future.<\/p>\n
NASA\u2019s recently announced workforce directive is a key factor in enabling this acceleration. NASA will rebuild core competencies in the civil servant workforce including more in-house and side-by-side development work with our Artemis partners, enabling a safer, more reliable, and faster launch cadence.<\/p>\n
\u201cNASA must standardize its approach, increase flight rate safely, and execute on the President\u2019s\u00a0national space policy. With credible competition from our\u00a0greatest\u00a0geopolitical adversary\u00a0increasing by the day, we need to move faster,\u00a0eliminate\u00a0delays, and\u00a0achieve our\u00a0objectives,\u201d said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.\u00a0\u201cStandardizing vehicle configuration, increasing flight rate and progressing through objectives in a logical, phased approach, is how we achieved the near-impossible in 1969 and it is how we will do it again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter successful completion of the Artemis\u00a0I\u00a0flight test, the upcoming Artemis\u00a0II\u00a0flight test, and the\u00a0new,\u00a0more robust test approach to Artemis\u00a0III, it\u00a0is needlessly complicated\u00a0to alter the configuration of the SLS\u00a0and\u00a0Orion stack to undertake subsequent\u00a0Artemis missions,\u201d said NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya. \u201cThere is too much\u00a0learning left on the table and too much development and production risk in front of us. Instead, we want to keep testing like we fly and have flown.\u00a0We are looking back to the wisdom of the folks that designed Apollo. The entire sequence of Artemis flights needs to\u00a0represent\u00a0a step-by-step build-up of capability, with\u00a0each step bringing us closer to our ability to perform the landing missions.\u00a0Each step needs to be big enough to make progress, but not\u00a0so big that we\u00a0take unnecessary risk given\u00a0previous\u00a0learnings. Therefore, we want to fly the landing missions in\u00a0as close to the same Earth ascent configuration as possible \u2013 this means using an upper stage and pad systems in as close to the\u00a0\u2018Block 1\u2019\u00a0configuration as possible. We will work with our partners that have been developing the evolved block configuration of these systems to take proper actions to align their efforts towards this\u00a0goal and\u00a0announce the details of those changes\u00a0once they are\u00a0finalized.\u00a0We will take a similar approach to in-space,\u00a0landing,\u00a0and surface EVA operations as well, as\u00a0we evolve the mission sequence in the spirit of the Apollo mindset, which\u00a0was obsessed with\u00a0system reliability\u00a0and crew safety as the keys to\u00a0mission success.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBoeing is a proud partner to the Artemis\u00a0mission\u00a0and our team is honored to contribute to NASA\u2019s vision for American space leadership,\u201d said Steve Parker, Boeing Defense, Space & Security president and CEO. \u201cThe SLS core stage\u00a0remains\u00a0the world\u2019s most powerful rocket stage, and the only one that can carry American astronauts directly to the moon and beyond in a single launch. As NASA lays out an accelerated launch schedule, our workforce and supply chain are prepared to meet the increased production needs. With a rocket designed at NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, built at America\u2019s rocket factory at NASA\u2019s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, and integrated at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, we are ready to meet the increased demand.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The announcement came during a news conference at NASA Kennedy where leaders also discussed the status of the Artemis II mission. NASA rolled the SLS and Orion spacecraft to the Vehicle Assembly Building\u00a0(VAB)\u00a0on Feb. 25 for repairs<\/a> ahead of the next launch opportunities for the test flight in April.\u00a0<\/p>\n Once the Artemis II hardware was back in the VAB, teams immediately began work on the helium issue discovered on the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage and prepared for several actions including replacing batteries in the flight termination system, end-to-end testing for range safety requirements, and more.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m grateful to Administrator Isaacman for taking this bold step\u00a0and moving quickly to assure we have the support and resources needed to launch Artemis astronauts to the Moon every year,\u201d said Lori Glaze,\u00a0acting\u00a0associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.\u00a0\u201cOur team is up to the challenge of a successful Artemis II mission, and soon thereafter,\u00a0enabling\u00a0a\u00a0more frequent\u00a0cadence of Moon missions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n For more about the\u00a0Artemis campaign, visit:\u00a0<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/artemis<\/a><\/p>\n -end-<\/p>\n Bethany Stevens \/ Cheryl Warner
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
bethany.c.stevens@nasa.gov<\/a> \/ cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As part of a Golden\u202fAge of exploration and discovery,\u202fNASA announced Friday the agency is increasing its cadence of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[504,42142,60076,79,193,54583],"class_list":{"0":"post-494200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-artemis","9":"tag-artemis-2","10":"tag-exploration-systems-development-mission-directorate","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space","13":"tag-space-launch-system-sls"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}