“This is not the right way to move forward,” Isaacman said.
A senior NASA official, speaking on background to Ars, said the space agency has experienced hydrogen and helium leaks during Artemis I and Artemis II prelaunch preparations, and these problems have caused launch delays of months.
“If I recall, the time between Apollo 7 and 8 was nine weeks,” the official said. “Launching SLS every three and a half years is not a recipe for success. Certainly, making each of them a work of art with some major configuration change isn’t helpful to the process either, and we’re clearly seeing the results of that, aren’t we?”
So the goal is to standardize the SLS rocket into a single configuration to make the rocket as reliable as possible and able to be launched as frequently as every 10 months. NASA will fly the SLS vehicle until commercial alternatives become available to launch crews to the Moon, perhaps via Artemis V as mandated by Congress, or perhaps slightly longer.
Is everyone on board?
NASA officials said all of the agency’s major contractors are on board with the change and that senior leaders in Congress have been briefed on the proposed changes.
The biggest opposition to these proposals will come from Boeing, the prime contractor for the Exploration Upper Stage, a billion-dollar contract to develop a more powerful rocket that was scheduled to launch for the first time later this decade. However, in a NASA news release, Boeing appeared to offer at least some support for the revised plans.
“Boeing is a proud partner of the Artemis mission and our team is honored to contribute to NASA’s vision for American space leadership,” Steve Parker, president and CEO of Boeing Defense, Space and Security, said in the news release. “The SLS core stage remains the world’s most powerful rocket stage, and the only stage that can carry American astronauts straight to the Moon and beyond in a single launch. As NASA prepares for an accelerated launch schedule, our workforce and supply chain are ready to meet increased production needs.”
Solid reasons to replace Artemis III
NASA’s new approach to Artemis represents a return to the philosophy of the Apollo program. During the late 1960s, the space agency flew a series of preliminary crewed missions before the Apollo 11 lunar landing. These included Apollo 7 (a low-Earth-orbit test of an Apollo spacecraft), Apollo 8 (a lunar orbiting mission), Apollo 9 (a low-Earth-orbit rendezvous with a lunar lander), and Apollo 10 (a test of a lunar lander that landed on the Moon without touching down).
With its previous Artemis template, NASA abandoned the steps taken by Apollo 7, 9, and 10. In the view of many industry executives, this jump from Artemis II – a crewed lunar flight to the Moon testing only the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft – to Artemis III and a full lunar landing was too big and risky.
Artemis II crew launches Neil A. at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Practiced a walkout from the Armstrong Operations and Checkout building.Photograph: Joe Radel/Getty Images
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