Major changes in NASA’s Artemis program to return to the Moon. The agency’s administrator, Jared Isaacman, has announced that he wants to do more launches to make sure the SLS rocket is in shape. To do this, the Artemis 3 mission, which was to take four astronauts to set foot on the satellite in 2028, changes completely. It is advanced to 2027 and will be a mission that will only fly in Earth orbit to test the ship. The landing attempts will be in 2028: at the beginning with the Artemis 4 mission and at the end with the Artemis 5 mission.
All this is decided after two problems with fuel leaks and the fact that the Artemis 2 astronauts must launch in April to orbit the Moon, for the first time since 1972. NASA planned to launch that mission in February or March, but has already had to postpone the first attempt until April due to the failures detected in the rocket tests.
“President Trump gave the world the Artemis program, and NASA and our partners have the plan to carry it out. We will standardize the architecture wherever possible, add missions and accelerate the rate of flight,” Isaacman said. “We will safely return American astronauts to the Moon, this time so they can stay. This is the NASA that once changed the world. This is the NASA that will do it again,” he assured.
President Trump gave the world the Artemis Program, and NASA and our partners have the plan to deliver. We will standardize architecture where possible, add missions and accelerate flight rate, execute in an evolutionary way, and safely return American astronauts to the Moon,…
— NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman (@NASAAdmin)
In the midst of a race with China, which intends to land there before 2030, NASA wants to improve the efficiency of its SLS rocket, much discussed due to its high cost. To do so, Isaacman wants to throw more times toward his target. That is why Artemis 3 will not be the mission in which the astronauts land, initially scheduled for 2028, but rather another transition one that is advanced to 2027, in which they will only approach the satellite without actually landing on the moon.
Isaacman thus cancels plans to improve the SLS and, as he has said, will return to square one. Instead of launching every three years, which hinders the agency’s ability to gain proficiency, they will launch every ten months. The Artemis 1 mission, which consisted of orbiting the Moon without a crew, was carried out in 2022 and Artemis 2 is still pending launch in 2026. “Competition is good, a good way to motivate our staff,” the administrator said about the added pressure they are experiencing due to China’s space program.
After two less than encouraging tests, the SLS rocket will return to the hangar for fine-tuning while the four astronauts who were going to fly prepare in quarantine. The NASA administrator noted earlier this week that the problem detected in the upper module of the space shuttle consisted of a helium jam, similar to a fault also detected before launching the Artemis 1 mission, which prevented that module from fulfilling its crucial role during the first hours of the mission. To repair that upper part of the gigantic rocket, .
NASA had promised to explain this week its new plans for the Artemis 2 mission, and its strategy to also launch Artemis 3. But all plans have been blown up with this decision. The early April launch window remains, if they can repair the spacecraft and return it to its launch pad, but it is still too early to know if the spacecraft will be ready then.
