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NASA is shaking up its Artemis program in a big way. The space agency held a press conference on Friday to discuss the continued delays of the Artemis II mission and address various changes to the program, which should help reduce the long waits between launches.
In light of multiple Artemis II delays, NASA believes putting humans back on the moon with Artemis III is too ambitious. It's now delaying a moon landing until Artemis IV.
The Artemis II mission had been scheduled for launch in February but was pushed back after NASA's SLS rocket failed its first wet dress rehearsal due to a hydrogen and helium fuel leak. The second test run was more successful, but NASA again delayed the launch due to "helium flow" issues discovered after the test, which required the rocket to return to the hangar for additional repairs.
The new launch date for Artemis II is no earlier than April 1.
Speeding up the Artemis missions
According to NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, the Artemis II delay stems from the SLS rocket's extended launch cadence. Isaacman told reporters on Friday that after three years, skills can "atrophy," and that asking personnel to stick around for years for the next launch is not tenable.
The key to more successful launches is to simply launch more frequently, he said.
"Launching a rocket as complex as the SLS every three years is not a path to success," Isaacman said during the press conference. "When you are experiencing some of the same issues between launches, you take a close look at your process for remediation, whether you're getting the true technical root cause, or are you getting close to it."
For now, NASA is making changes to the agency and the Artemis missions, including shaking up personnel, standardizing the SLS rocket so it can launch more often and getting "back to the basics" to launch missions faster.
The ultimate goal is to have missions ready to launch every 10 months rather than every three years.
When will each Artemis mission launch now?
NASA still intends to put astronauts on the moon by 2028. Here is the new launch schedule for the Artemis missions:
- Artemis II: Will launch no earlier than April 1, 2026, and will send astronauts around the moon to conduct tests.
- Artemis III: Scheduled launch is mid-2027 to perform tests, connecting with lunar landers in low Earth orbit and testing gear that will go on Artemis IV.
- Artemis IV: Scheduled launch is early 2028, and it will send humans back to the moon.
- Artemis V: Could launch in late 2028 and send humans to the moon again. If Artemis III and IV are delayed, however, Artemis V will launch in 2029.
What will Artemis III do now?
Now that it's no longer set to be the moon-landing mission, the new goal of Artemis III is to launch into low-Earth orbit, rendezvous with NASA's lunar landers, perform tests and learn more about the effects of microgravity on lunar suits.
Per Isaacman, this is in response to concerns raised by NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel that the gap in mission objectives between Artemis II and Artemis III was too great, posing a risk to astronauts. The extra test flight will give NASA more data to better protect astronauts when they do go to the moon.
"We did not just jump to Apollo 11, we did it through Mercury, Gemini and lots of Apollo missions with a launch cadence (of) every three months," Isaacman told reporters.
These discussions have been going on behind closed doors for quite some time, and NASA says that Congress and its commercial partners, like Boeing, are all-in on the new plan.
"As NASA lays out an accelerated launch schedule, our workforce and supply chain are prepared to meet the increased production needs," said Steve Parker, Boeing's defense, space and security president and CEO.
