Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Wait-a-Minute!
Image credit: Barbara David

Yet another wait-a-minute moment for NASA’s return to the Moon with humans program.

As it has repeatedly warned, panel members of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) – a group that reports to NASA and the U.S. Congress – have once again red-flagged the SpaceX Starship’s development tied to the space agency’s needs to return human boots to the Moon

A September 19^th ASAP gathering underscored Starship’s longer than planned evolution to support the Artemis 3 mission to land a crew at the lunar south pole.

Image credit: ASAP

NASA officials are reportedly considering pushing off Artemis 3 to 2028 while other appraisals don’t see a Starship-aided Moon landing before 2032.

If so, the window of opportunity for China’s human exploration of the Moon by 2030 looms large.

Technical readiness level

The ASAP annual report for 2024 provides the backdrop of concern.

“Artemis III is planned as a crewed surface landing and exploration of the lunar south pole region. The Panel remains very concerned that, on the current schedule and with the current technical readiness level of some segments of the architecture, the Artemis III mission is oversubscribed.”

Image credit: ASAP

As the ASAP previously detailed in its 2023 Annual Report, “the aggregated risk associated with accomplishing so many ‘first-time’ milestones, including several critical prerequisite demonstrations, may be too high.”

Bottom line: Starship HLS remains a critical path item for the successful execution of Artemis III.

For details on the recent ASAP meeting, go to Marcia Smith’s detailed reporting on her Spacepolicyonline.com website at:

https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-safety-panel-estimates-significant-delays-for-starship-hls/

Hearing – anybody listening?

Angst regarding the status of Artemis 3 also penetrated U.S. Senator Ted Cruz’s Senate hearing back on September 3.

Image credit: Inside Outer Space screengrab

That hearing was titled: “There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise: Why Congress and NASA Must Thwart China in the Space Race.”

Among the witnesses testifying, former NASA chief, James Bridenstine stated in written testimony that the United States does not have a lunar lander.

“Unless something changes, it is highly unlikely the United States will beat China’s projected timeline to the Moon’s surface. Our complicated architecture requires a dozen or more launches in a short time frame, relies on very challenging technologies that have yet to be developed like cryogenic in-space refueling, and still needs to be human rated,” Bridenstine said.

Starship 10 departure.
Image credit: SpaceX/Inside Outer Space screengrab

“While the capability could be transformational over time if payload capacity increases (so far it has decreased), the complexity of the architecture precludes alacrity,” the former NASA chief added.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship team is making progress on the next flight test of the Super Heavy/Starship at the firm’s Starbase facility in Texas.

No target launch date has been announced as yet for Starship Flight 11.

Fly…learn…repeat…fingers-crossed…fly…learn…repeat…

Wait-a-Minute!
Image credit: Barbara David