NASA is shaking up its Artemis program in a big way. The space agency held a press conference on Friday to discuss the continued delays of the Artemis II mission and address various changes to the program, which should help reduce the long waits between launches.
In light of multiple Artemis II delays, NASA believes putting humans back on the moon with Artemis III is too ambitious. It's now delaying a moon landing until Artemis IV.
The Artemis II mission had been scheduled for launch in February but was pushed back after NASA's SLS rocket failed its first wet dress rehearsal due to a hydrogen and helium fuel leak. The second test run was more successful, but NASA again delayed the launch due to "helium flow" issues discovered after the test, which required the rocket to return to the hangar for additional repairs.
The new launch date for Artemis II is no earlier than April 1.
Speeding up the Artemis missions
According to NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, the Artemis II delay stems from the SLS rocket's extended launch cadence. Isaacman told reporters on Friday that after three years, skills can "atrophy," and that asking personnel to stick around for years for the next launch is not tenable.
The key to more successful launches is to simply launch more frequently, he said.
"Launching a rocket as complex as the SLS every three years is not a path to success," Isaacman said during the press conference. "When you are experiencing some of the same issues between launches, you take a close look at your process for remediation, whether you're getting the true technical root cause, or are you getting close to it."
For now, NASA is making changes to the agency and the Artemis missions, including shaking up personnel, standardizing the SLS rocket so it can launch more often and getting "back to the basics" to launch missions faster.
The ultimate goal is to have missions ready to launch every 10 months rather than every three years.
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