Spaceflight Now reported that a senior NASA official “raised concerns Wednesday that ‘difficulties’ with SpaceX’s development of the huge new Starship rocket could delay the Artemis program’s first moon landing with astronauts from late 2025, a mission that will use a derivative of the Starship vehicle to ferry a two-person crew to and from the lunar surface.” NASA’s Head of Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate Jim Free “said SpaceX has much work to do before the Starship is cleared to land astronauts on the moon.” NASA currently has scheduled Artemis mission’s first human moon landing in 2025 on Artemis III. Free said, “For Artemis 3, I mentioned that December ‘25 is our current manifest date. But with the difficulties that SpaceX has had, I think that’s really concerning. So you can think about that slipping probably into ‘26.”
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Tag: Artemis Mission
NASA to Consider Every Agency Astronaut for Artemis Missions
SPACE reports that NASA announced Friday that it is considering every agency astronaut for Artemis missions. The announcement “rolls back a 2020 announcement that selected 18 astronauts for these missions.” NASA Johnson Space Center Astronaut Office head Reid Wiseman said, “The way I look at it, any one of our 42 active astronauts is eligible for an Artemis mission. We want to assemble the right team for this mission.
Full Story (SPACE)