NASA’s 2024 Astronaut Moon Landing Is Almost Certainly Not Going to Happen

Ongoing delays in growing NASA’s next-generation spacesuit, together with important delays in different main applications, imply a lunar touchdown in 2024 is “not feasible,” in response to a report from the company’s Office of Inspector General.

The OIG report got here out on August 10, and it reinforces one thing we’ve suspected for some time: The plan to land an American man and girl on the Moon in late 2024 is wholly unrealistic.

Indeed, NASA nonetheless has to fly a rocket wanted for the mission; it doesn’t but possess a lunar lander able to bringing astronauts to the floor and again; and, as the brand new audit reveals, its next-generation spacesuit will possible not be flight-ready in time for testing and use within the Artemis III mission. That the spacesuit, often known as the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Units (xEMU), gained’t be prepared till 2025 is discouraging, to say the least. I wrote an article about this spacesuit in October final 12 months, and whereas xEMU appears tremendous cool, the brand new audit exposes it for what it truly is: vaporware.

Astronauts on the International Space Station are at the moment utilizing a go well with designed 45 years in the past for the Space Shuttle Program. NASA has refurbished and modified this go well with to make ISS spacewalks doable, however the house company has spent the previous 14 years growing the applied sciences for its next-gen spacesuit.

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In addition to maintaining astronauts alive on the lunar floor, xEMU might want to combine with the Human Landing System (HLS) and the upcoming lunar Gateway (a deliberate house base positioned in orbit across the Moon). As the OIG defined in its new report, the “development of new spacesuits is a critical component of achieving NASA’s goals of returning humans to the Moon, continuing safe operations on the International Space Station, and exploring Mars and other deep space locations.”

An OIG audit from 2017 tracked the progress of the xEMU program, discovering that NASA spent $200 million through the earlier 9 years to develop the go well with, but the company “remained years away” from having a completed product, as the brand new report factors out. Since then, NASA has poured an extra $220 million into the venture, which now totals $420 million in prices.

The OIG auditors took a deep dive into the venture, taking a look at prices, schedules, and efficiency of the next-generation spacesuit. NASA is meant to provide a pair of mission-ready xEMUs by November 2024, however the OIG mentioned the company faces “significant challenges” in reaching this purpose.

The venture is at the very least 20 months delayed, the results of insufficient funding, disruptions posed by the covid-19 pandemic, and technical challenges, in response to the report. This has “left no schedule margin” for the supply of those two fits. What’s extra, NASA nonetheless must finalize the design (yep, you learn that appropriately), undergo verification, and produce two qualification fits (an in depth match to the actual deal) and an ISS demo go well with, along with constructing two flight-ready fits for Artemis III. At the earliest, NASA is predicted to cross-out all of those excellent to-do objects by April 2025, because the report factors out. The OIG anticipates that, by this time, NASA could have spent $1 billion to develop and construct the xEMUs, in reference to the $652.2 million that NASA nonetheless plans to spend money on the venture from now to 2025.

Needless to say, this late supply is already impacting the mission; the Artemis astronauts don’t have the required fits for testing, and so they gained’t have any for the foreseeable future. Sure, they’ll have mockups, however these Design Verification Test fits, as they’re known as, are greatest guesses of what the ultimate go well with will appear to be and the way it’ll work.

“Given these anticipated delays in spacesuit development, a lunar landing in late 2024 as NASA currently plans is not feasible,” in response to the report.

But because the OIG additionally factors out, the unfinished spacesuit is hardly the one barrier to a 2024 touchdown, in reference to the still-to-be launched Space Launch System and the Human Landing System, at the moment being developed by SpaceX. The latest protest filed by Blue Origin, by which the corporate argued that NASA acted unfairly in selecting SpaceX for the venture, contributed to additional delays, the report says (Boeing lost the protest, by the best way).

The authors of the OIG report supplied a number of suggestions, together with changes to the schedule to “reduce development risks,” not shifting ahead till all “technical requirements for the next-generation suits are solidified,” and “developing an acquisition strategy for the next-generation spacesuits that meets the needs of both the ISS and Artemis programs.”

Collaboration with business companions will not be out of the query, and the OIG mentioned as a lot within the report. In a latest tweet, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk mentioned his firm “could do it if need be,” however additional particulars weren’t given. Indeed, it’s not instantly clear if NASA is occupied with SpaceX’s companies for the spacesuit venture or if that is one thing SpaceX can really deal with proper now. The firm is busy at work with the Starship platform, which is predicted to function the lunar lander.

As it stands, Artemis III continues to be scheduled for late 2024. It appears ludicrous, if not tortuous for all of the folks engaged on Artemis {that a} new and extra affordable date has not but been established. But an announcement of a brand new goal date has to occur quickly. Right?