The Moon calendar keeps slipping
Can the latest lunar landing date be met or is end of decade likely?
The saying folks in the business like to use is, “space is hard.” Going back to the Moon more than 50 years after Apollo is proving really hard, and has forced another delay.
NASA was originally planning to land “the first woman and first person of color” on the lunar service later this year. That date was pushed back to 2025, and now there’s another delay until September of 2026. Some experts wonder if even that date can be met considering all the challenges ahead for the Artemis program.
WHY ARE WE GOING?
Let’s start with a couple questions I get quite often. Why are we going back to the Moon? We landed on the Moon in 1969, why is it harder and taking longer than it did more than five decades ago?
Remembering that part of NASA’s mandate is exploration, the answer to both questions, according to the space agency, is that this is a very different mission to the Moon. NASA not only wants to land on the Moon, it wants to stay. The vision is to create a moon base and learn how to survive in an inhospitable environment without cargo vessels constantly bringing supplies. There will be a small orbiting space station too, allowing astronauts to land on the surface more often.
If NASA can do that on the Moon then it might be able to do the same to explore Mars. The lunar missions will be near the Moon’s south pole with the hope astronauts will find ice that can be used to make water, oxygen, and fuel. The International Space Station has been used as a laboratory to discover ways to grow plants for food and other uses. The decision to build a moon base means new systems and vehicles that are more complicated than those that took Apollo astronauts to the Moon.
DIFFERENT MISSION
NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free recently told reporters, “The moon may not be different but our knowledge of the moon and advancements in technology, industry capabilities, have changed our approach to exploration, which you can see reflected in all of these programs.” Free added, “We're committed to launching as safely as possible, and we will launch when we're ready.”
The to-do list is a long one. In fact, NASA’s safety advisory board just said in its 2023 report that before landing Artemis III on the Moon, the agency will have to accomplish 13 “firsts.” Here is a look at some of the issues and milestones that are ahead before a landing on the Moon.
THE CAPSULE- Orion is the spacecraft that will carry four astronauts from the Earth to lunar orbit. Orion has flown twice. The Artemis I mission took Orion around the Moon and back. As with any test flight, there were issues which NASA is working to fix. The first is with the heat shield. The heat shield protects the astronauts as they re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and it worked on the Moon return. It’s designed to have some of its material burn off. NASA’s Amit Kshatriya says there was, “some char that came off of the heat shield which we were not expecting.” That is not good. NASA hopes to understand why this happens by this spring.
HATCH ISSUE
The NASA safety advisory board noted the heat shield and another problem NASA leaders did not discuss in their recent briefing. The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel says it is concerned about, “the Orion Side Hatch delta-pressure capability for nominal and contingency operations.” This question about the capsule’s side hatch came up at the Advisory Board’s May meeting. The minutes say the Board is worried about the side hatch because of, “the importance of its role in necessary crew escape modes.” Neither NASA nor Lockheed Martin, the builder of Orion, were able to comment on this concern before publication.
The capsule also needs a redesign of a circuit that is part of the life support system for scrubbing CO2, and additional testing of batteries that are part of the escape system in the event of a launch abort. All these issues must be addressed before Artemis II. That next mission will carry astronauts for the first time, and around the Moon without a landing.
THE LANDER- SpaceX has a contract to provide the lander for the first Artemis missions. This is the Starship. It is Elon Musk’s dream of a heavy-lift spacecraft that is reusable and can land and take off from the surface of the Moon. Starship has not made it to orbit yet. There have been two attempts. SpaceX hopes to make its third attempt next month.
Even when Starship makes it to orbit there are daunting challenges ahead. In order to get to the Moon and take astronauts to the surface, Starship will need to be refueled in space. Starship is powered by liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Liquid means cryogenic, which means supercooled, to turn a gas into a liquid. Not only must SpaceX prove it can carry the fuel to space, keeping it cold, it then needs to transfer the fuel to Starship. That is something that has never been done in space.
STARSHIP REFUELING
During the recent briefing, SpaceX representative Jessica Jensen was asked how many transfers would be necessary. Jensen answered by saying SpaceX has learned a lot about cryogenic fuel transfers on Earth and will be able to apply those lessons. Once Jensen had finished there was a remarkable moment on the briefing call. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson spoke up and pointed out that Jensen had not answered the reporter’s question. Nelson asked, “How many fuel transfers will be needed?” Jensen then answered it will probably be about 10 fuel transfers that will be needed in space. NASA’s safety advisory board says in its new report the number is actually 15. SpaceX says it hopes to test a fuel transfer before this year is out.
SpaceX will also need to complete an unmanned landing on the Moon before astronauts are aboard. Last year, Elon Musk said Starship would be ready for astronauts by the end of 2024. Jensen told reporters that the uncrewed test won’t be conducted until 2025. As NASA’s Amit Kshatriya told reporters, SpaceX needs more time. “We need more time on the landing systems, landing system development, and on the on the suit development,” he said.
THE SPACESUITS- NASA has developed its spacesuits in the past. This time private companies competed to build a suit to walk on the Moon and another to walk in space to work on a space station. But as NASA told reporters, more time is needed to build the suit for the lunar surface. Axiom, the company building the lunar suit, has not even received preliminary design approval. These suits are like mini-spacecraft and will have a design much different from the Apollo suits. NASA’s Free said learning about the supply chain for Axiom is part of the reason for the extended timeline.
HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE
Those are some of the challenges, and those 13 firsts, NASA and its contractors must complete to have a chance to put astronauts on the surface of the Moon. That is why some ask if this calendar may need to slip again to later in the decade. NASA’s Jim Free says that is not what he’s hearing for those building the spaceships, suits, and systems. “We're setting a date for three [Artemis III] that we have set with our contractors, based on the technical plans that they've laid out,” adding, “that's what they've signed up to contractually and that's what we're gonna hold them accountable to.”
There’s a lot to do. But, that’s what was said in the 1960s when President Kennedy challenged the nation to put a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth by the end of that decade.