NASA gives more info on Artemis III progress

Five weeks ago, April 8, I passed along some information on planning the Artemis III mission.  Five weeks to the day later, yesterday, Eric Berger at Ars Technica passed along some information he's getting from various sources on how those decisions are going.  

One of the first decisions that had to be made was whether the mission would launch to Low or High Earth Orbit. That decision has to be among the first because it affects so much. 

The space agency chose the orbit close to Earth—as opposed to a higher orbit—because it would preserve the final remaining Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage for launching the Artemis IV landing mission later this decade. Instead, NASA will use a “spacer” to simulate the mass and overall dimensions of an upper stage but without propulsive capabilities. 

Artemis III was originally scheduled as the first Artemis moon landing, before the end of 2025, but most recently has been looking to be late in 2027. The mission will now be restricted to Earth orbit for a test of one or (preferably) both lunar landers, SpaceX's Starship-based Human Landing System or Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark 1.

“For the first time, NASA will coordinate a launch campaign involving multiple spacecraft integrating new capabilities into Artemis operations,” said Jeremy Parsons, Moon to Mars acting assistant deputy administrator, in a news release. “We’re integrating more partners and interrelated operations into this mission by design, which will help us learn how Orion, the crew, and ground teams all interact together with hardware and teams from both providers before we send astronauts to the Moon’s surface and build a Moon Base there.”

The complication of potentially flying two different lunar landers certainly adds complexity to the mission. The crew for Artemis III hasn't been named yet, but since the Orion capsule can seat four people, perhaps a division of two trained more with SpaceX's HLS and two trained more with B.O.'s Blue Moon is a reasonable way to approach this mission. The possibility is mentioned that not only might they not fly the landers, but that the crew might not even enter the landers! 

This sets up a major dilemma for Isaacman and the rest of NASA’s leadership. If they fly Artemis III in 2027, the stated goal, they almost certainly will be rendezvousing with one or two landers that are far short of full maturity. (The NASA release calls them “pathfinders.”) If NASA is contemplating not even having the crew enter the landers, it is possible that neither vehicle will have even basic life support.

This falls short of a well-established maxim in the space industry: test like you fly. The longer NASA waits to fly Artemis III, the better chance it will have to fly with a higher-fidelity vehicle—that is, one closer to landing on the Moon than being a basic prototype. It also increases the likelihood that an Artemis spacesuit, developed by Axiom Space, will be available for testing.

The sun lights the sky behind Artemis II on its SLS launch vehicle sitting at Pad 39B on the Kennedy Space Center, the day before the start of the Artemis II mission. Image Credit: NASA/Jim Ross

The reality of planning for Artemis III is that the longer NASA has to wait to fly Artemis III, the more likely it becomes that NASA will lose the race to the lunar landing in Artemis IV.