1 week Ago By Jeff Foust
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Despite political uncertainty about the future of NASA’s overall effort to return humans to the moon, the hardware for the next Artemis mission continues to take shape. NASA and industry representatives highlighted the progress on the Artemis 2 mission at a media day here in March as both the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft are prepared for a launch scheduled no later than April 2026.
Artemis 2 will mark the first crewed SLS/Orion flight, sending a four-person team around the moon on a 10-day mission. That technical progress on Artemis 2, though, comes as many in the industry, including those working on the mission, worry about the long-term future of Artemis. The Trump administration has said little about plans for Artemis, but comments by the president about sending astronauts to Mars have led to concerns that plans to return to the moon might be scaled back or even abandoned.
Sign up for The China Report Beginning this spring, Andrew Jones will be explaining the business, politics and technology in Chinese space activities as part of a new biweekly newsletter. By submitting this form, you agree to the SpaceNews Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions and to receive email from us. You can opt-out at any time.
That has included rumors that Artemis 2 itself could be canceled. But project officials insist they remain focused on getting the hardware ready for launch. “The best thing I can do is to focus on the mission we have right in front of us,” said Kirk Shireman, Lockheed Martin vice president for the Orion program, a message he said he also offers to the Orion workforce.
Howard Hu, NASA Orion program manager, said he has not been asked to plan for any changes to the Orion program. “It’s full speed ahead,” he said. “We all have a desire to go to the moon and get our astronauts there as soon as we can.
” “We’re about to put boots back on the moon. The fastest way we could put boots on the moon is to continue on the course we’re on,” Shireman said. “If we want to beat China, this is the way we’re going to beat China.
” To that end, staff preparing for the mission are taking advantage of lessons learned from the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission in 2022, the first flight of SLS. “We did a lot of work between Artemis 1 and Artemis 2 to change our engineering drawings and change our hardware some to allow the process to go significantly better,” said Mark Pond, senior director for NASA programs at Northop Grumman’s propulsion systems unit. Northrop Grumman produces the five-segment solid rocket boosters for the SLS.
The experience of Artemis 1 allowed the stacking of the booster segments to go much more smoothly on Artemis 2. “Probably at least 50% better,” he estimated. “The first flight had its own trials and tribulations,” said Andrew Shroble, operations integration manager at Amentum, which supports NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems program.
Those lessons have been applied for Artemis 2 work, streamlining processes and providing better knowledge just how long certain work will take. “The entire program as a whole,” he said, “has been looking for each and every way to save every hour that we can.” Preparations have also been going smoothly for Orion, particularly after NASA’s decision in December to fly the heat shield on the spacecraft as-is and modify the reentry profile to mitigate the heat shield erosion seen on Artemis 1.
“Artemis 1 was a really good demonstration of the foundation of our primary systems that enable us to move forward,” Hu said. “The next big step is about the crew systems and how the spacecraft flies and operates.” He said that later this month the Orion spacecraft will be moved to a processing building for fueling and installation of its launch abort system.
From there it will go to the Vehicle Assembly Building to be mated to the SLS..
