WASHINGTON — Members of a key congressional committee expressed disappointment over the latest delay in NASA’s plans to return humans to the moon but showed little interest in making major changes to that program.
At a Jan. 17 hearing of the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee, a NASA official explained the agency’s decision to delay its next two Artemis missions by nearly a year, with watchdogs and a former NASA administrator offering some skepticism about that revised schedule.
NASA announced Jan. 9 that it was delaying Artemis 2, the first crewed flight of the Space Launch System and Orion, from late 2024 to no earlier than September 2025 to provide more time to address issues with the Orion spacecraft. That, in turn, delayed Artemis 3, the first crewed lunar landing of the overall effort, to no earlier than September 2026.
“We have adjusted the Artemis 2 schedule based on crew safety,” said Catherine Koerner, NASA associate administrator for exploration systems development. The delay provides sufficient time, she argued, to address the issues identified last week. “There is margin built into that schedule for us to complete all of that necessary testing.”
Other witnesses said that delay seemed reasonable. “The Artemis circumlunar mission is, I think, very doable on the timescale that NASA has said,” said Mike Griffin, who was NASA administrator from 2005 to 2009.
However, Griffin and others were not convinced that Artemis 3 could launch as soon as September 2026. “I don’t think Artemis 3, the landing mission, is at all realistically scheduled,” he said.
“NASA will continue to be challenged on the schedule front, particularly with the Artemis 3 mission,” said George Scott, acting NASA inspector general. “Based on lessons learned from Artemis 2, I think the agency will be better positioned to come up with a more realistic launch date for Artemis 3.”
William Russell, director of contracting…
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