NASA pursuing a ‘more achievable’ path back to the moon

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As NASA prepares to send astronauts to the Moon for the first time in more than half a century, the agency is revising its long-term plans for Earth’s natural satellite.

Speaking at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference on Monday (March 16), NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya said: Artemis 2 remains on track for an April 1 launch. If successful, the mission will send astronauts further from Earth than humans have ever gone before, surpassing the distance record set by Apollo 13 in 1970.

“The most exciting thing is that we’re getting back to it,” Kshatriya said. “We’re starting to think again about what human exploration of the Moon might look like.”

The approximately 10-day mission will carry Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen on a trajectory around the other side of the moon. At closest approach, the moon will appear to them the size of a basketball held at arm’s length. From this vantage point, astronauts will document various surface features, including regions that scientists believe have never been seen by humans.

“We tell the crew that their verbal descriptions will actually be the monumental scientific data set for this mission,” said Ariel Deutsch, a planetary scientist at NASA. Ames Research Center in California and a member of the science team helping plan observations of Artemis 2. “As humans, the crew provides critical perceptual context this simply cannot be replicated with robotic sensors.

The Artemis 2 crew can spend up to six hours making observations, using handheld Nikon cameras, recording verbal descriptions, and making sketches and annotations on tablets. While many lunar targets are large or easy to identify, scientists are particularly interested in subtle variations in color, lighting and terrain — features that human perception can capture in a way that instruments alone can miss, Deutsch said.

To guide this effort, NASA developed an interactive lunar atlas to help the crew track priority targets based on lighting and viewing conditions during the flyby. The final observation plan will be uploaded after launch, once the spacecraft’s precise trajectory is confirmed, Deutsch said.

Preparation for Artemis 2 includes three years of training anchored in Apollo-the techniques of the time, particularly field geology, as well as an intensive course in “Moon Fundamentals” designed to develop the vocabulary and observational skills needed to describe the Moon from its orbit, said NASA’s Cindy Evans. Johnson Space Center in Houston, who directed the crew’s geology training program.

“We practiced their visual observations and descriptions a lot,” Evans said, “so they could talk about the Moon with confidence and know that they were talking about critical features that are important to lunar scientists returning to the Moon. Earth“.

A more flexible return path to the Moon

Artemis 2 was, until recently, touted as a precursor to a crewed lunar landing in 2028. But in late February, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that the milestone will change from Artemis 3, as originally planned, to Artemis 4, which is now on track to become the first crewed moon landing since the Apollo era.

The ultimate destination remains the lunar south pole, a region believed to harbor water ice – a crucial resource for future human exploration – in permanently shadowed craters. But the terrain there is much more difficult than the relatively smooth equatorial sites visited during Apollo, with steep slopes, craggy mountains and extreme lighting conditions.

“The goal is to reach the South Pole,” Kshatriya said. “I think we agree, but we hope this is the right place to go. We’re going to stay the course there.”

To make that goal “more achievable,” NASA is opening up the performance specifications for the first Artemis landing missions “in every way possible,” Kshatriya said. The changes allow for greater flexibility in spacecraft orbits and mission design, accounting for the capabilities and limitations of current systems while giving industry partners more freedom to propose faster pathways, he said.

“But we’re not giving up on the South Pole yet, and I don’t think we will, because I think it’s a place we need to go,” Kshatriya said. “We need to challenge ourselves and we need to go somewhere we’ve never been.”

The revised strategy places greater emphasis on robotic precursor missions to lay the foundation for a sustainable human presence. NASA is considering a constant cadence of robotic landings near the South Pole – potentially up to once a month – as early as 2027, to collect data on extreme temperatures, soil properties and communications challenges.

The data will help reduce risks to future crews and “really give us a credible chance of putting together a lunar base in the right place,” Kshatriya said.

“We’re not just going to bring down a magical bubble dome where everyone lives in and has amazing plants and things,” he said. “We know it’s not credible.”

The change in strategy comes in the middle delays in SpaceX’s massive Starship rocketwhose upper stage NASA chose to be the upper stage of the Artemis program first crewed lunar lander. According to the original architecture, Artemis 3 depended on the completion of several complex steps that Starship has not yet demonstrated. These include large-scale transfer and storage of super-cooled propellant in space, as well as a dozen resupply flights in Earth orbit before the vehicle can head to the Moon.

NASA also selected the Blue Moon lander Blue originwho has suspended its suborbital space tourism efforts for at least two years to accelerate the development of its lunar lander. NASA plans to test Orion’s rendezvous and docking capabilities alongside Starship and/or Blue Moon in Earth orbit during Artemis 3, now scheduled for launch in 2027.

NASA hopes the revised plan will keep it on track for a 2028 moon landing, while positioning the agency for send astronauts back to the Moon before China – and before the end of the current US presidential term in January 2029.

Kshatriya said meeting that timeline would require what he described as “a step change” in how NASA works with industry.

“It’s going to take the people at NASA to roll up their sleeves and join with industry to finish some of these things,” he said, “which I think a lot of us want to do anyway, but that’s what it’s going to take.”

“It’s ambitious, but I think we can do it.”