A senior NASA official suggested on Tuesday that the Artemis-3 mission, said to be the first to take Americans back to the moon, could be turned into “another mission” if there were delays in certain key elements , including the SpaceX lander.
NASA’s Artemis program consists of missions of increasing difficulty aimed at establishing a permanent human presence on the moon in preparation for a trip to Mars.
The first mission, Artemis 1, already sent a spacecraft around the moon in 2022, and Artemis 2 will have to do the same in late 2024, but this time with a crew on board.
Then, a year later, this time the Artemis 3 mission must land astronauts on the lunar surface, a first since 1972.
For this historic mission, billionaire Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, is responsible for building the lander designed to land the astronauts on the lunar soil.
But the machine is far from finished. The lander will be a version of the Starship spacecraft, whose test flight a few months ago ended in a massive explosion shortly after launch. The date for a new test flight is not yet known.
“For Artemis 3, we’re still working with everyone on contract dates that are in December 2025,” NASA Deputy Administrator Jim Free said at a news conference on Tuesday.
But “we could end up flying another mission,” he added. “When we have these big delays, we’ve been wondering if there’s any way we can do other missions.”
He didn’t exactly answer a journalist’s question about orbiting the moon without landing there. Other Artemis program missions include the construction of Gateaway, a mini space station in orbit around the moon.
Mr Free, who also pointed out on Tuesday that another critical element of the mission, including the spacesuits, is also still under development, had previously expressed concern about the difficulties SpaceX encountered in developing the spacecraft Starship encountered.
He was describing a recent visit to Texas, where SpaceX is developing the future lander, on Tuesday.
NASA teams could “try to better understand their schedule,” he said, promising to release news on the matter once all the information was “digested.”
“We don’t want a schedule without any leeway,” he said.