Of course that should set off a round of "what does that mean?" Certainly December is late in the year, but what about September? It's month 9 out of 12, of course, so early September can almost be late August. When I read something like late 2027, I figure early 2028.
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman described the likely soonest date that way to a group of lawmakers Monday, Apr. 27, saying that both SpaceX and Blue Origin, the agency’s two lunar lander contractors, say they could have their spacecraft ready for the next Artemis mission in Earth orbit in late 2027, somewhat later than NASA’s previous schedule. As you know, when Isaacman took over running NASA, Artemis III was supposed to be the lunar landing mission. Isaacman thought flying a very complex system like that once a year was not going to succeed, or at best, not be as trouble-free as we'd like it to be. He turned the moon landing flight to Artemis IV and inserted a new vision for Artemis III that would be done in Earth orbit, to test rendezvous and docking of the combination of the Orion capsule with the two different landers.
A launch to Low Earth Orbit may not require the upper stage of the SLS, which is already built and in storage.
A launch into a higher orbit would require the upper stage, but it would allow NASA to perform tests in an environment more similar to the Moon. NASA is buying a new commercial upper stage, the Centaur V from United Launch Alliance, to pair with the SLS rocket after flying the last of the rocket’s existing upper stages.
The new Artemis III 'rhymes' with the Apollo 9 mission, which was in March of 1969. It's intended to test out the landers in LEO so that in the event of some big problem, the astronauts are hours or even minutes away from home and not a few days. When the approach was announced, NASA implied mission III could be as soon as mid-'27. Now it's looking more like the end of '27, rather than one year after April's Artemis II mission.
“I’ve received responses from both vendors, both SpaceX and Blue Origin, to meet our needs for a late 2027 rendezvous, docking, and test of the interoperability of both landers in advance of a landing attempt in 2028,” Isaacman said Monday.
Both companies have multibillion-dollar contracts to develop and deliver human-rated landers to NASA for use on Artemis missions. Both vehicles need to be refueled in space in order to fly to the Moon. This added complexity is not required for an Earth orbit mission.
“The taxpayers are making a very big investment to both SpaceX and Blue Origin’s Human Landing System (HLS) capability,” Isaacman said in a hearing before the subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee responsible for NASA’s budget. “I would also appreciate that both those companies are investing well in excess of that, as well.”
While I don't have real specifications for either lander, if they were to use a full-sized Starship, that could put many tons into orbit. It has been talked about for missions intended to carry 100 tons to any point on Earth within 90 minutes. Lifting less payload requires less fuel, which also saves fuel. There has been talk about using a smaller version of Starship for the HLS since the original mission profile Artemis would fly doesn't exist anymore.
It's not just in the lander's specs that there's a shortage of useful data; the actual mission plans are far from complete, too. Remember Axiom's space suits being developed for the lunar missions?
NASA would also like to fly at least one of Axiom’s commercial spacesuits on Artemis III to give astronauts a chance to try it out in space before they need it for walking on the Moon. The suits are undergoing tests on the ground and in NASA’s spacewalk training pool in Houston. Isaacman said Monday that NASA could also send an Axiom suit to the International Space Station for testing by the end of next year.
There's also a possibility that NASA will try to simplify the mission, perhaps just doing the rendezvous and docking but not undocking the vehicle and letting crew maneuver around the Orion in LEO. That depends on how complete the two Human Landing System vehicles are. Blue Origin is planning an uncrewed landing of their Blue Moon cargo lander near the lunar south pole. SpaceX is looking to test their Version 3 Starship within the next month, although a date hasn't been announced for either of those.
Image from
Casey Handmer's blog. He put this graphic together to put raw numbers in front of all the faces
who need to know. Those numbers are probably long out of
date.
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