Change is coming to Artemis!

The White House today released a new executive order that has the typically grand title these type of orders usually have: “Ensuring American Space Superiority”. That it was released one day after Jared Isaacman was confirmed as NASA administrator by the Senate was no accident, as this executive order demands a lot of action by him, with a clear focus on reshaping and better structuring the entire manned exploration program of the space agency.

The order begins about outlining some basic goals. It demands that the U.S. return to the Moon by 2028, establish the “initial elements” a base there by 2030, and do so by “enhancing sustainability and cost-effectiveness of launch and exploration architectures, including enabling commercial launch services and prioritizing lunar exploration.” It also demands this commercial civilian exploration occur in the context of American security concerns.

Above all, the order demands that these goals focus on “growing a vibrant commercial space economy through the power of American free enterprise,” in order to attract “at least $50 billion of additional investment in American space markets by 2028, and increasing launch and reentry cadence through new and upgraded facilities, improved efficiency, and policy reforms.”

To achieve these goals, the order then outlines a number of actions required by the NASA administrator, the secretaries of Commerce, War, and State, as well as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy (APDP), all coordinated by the assistant to the President for Science and Technology (APST).

All of this is unsurprising. Much of it is not much different than the basic general space goals that every administration has touted for decades. Among this generality however was one very specific item, a demand to complete within 90 days the following review:

by the Secretary of Commerce and the Administrator of NASA, in consultation with the Director of OMB, of their respective major space acquisition programs to identify any such programs that are more than 30 percent behind schedule based on the program’s acquisition baseline, 30 percent over cost based on the program’s baseline, unable to meet any key performance parameters, or unaligned with the priorities in this order, along with a description of their planned mitigation or remediation efforts.

If that isn’t a very precise description of SLS and Orion, I don’t know what is. It appears this executive order is quite specifically laying the political groundwork for ending both, and to do so the Trump administration wants this report on hand to show both Congress and the public. Note too that the report isn’t simply supposed to identify these over-budget and behind schedule programs, but to outline the “planned mitigation or remediation efforts”, efforts that must work to “grow a vibrant commercial space economy through the power of American free enterprise.”

In other words, Trump wants Isaacman to work up a new Artemis program that he can present to Congress, no longer relying on a government-owned rocket (SLS). It is also likely that Isaacman and Trump discussed this entire strategy during their meetings leading up to Trump’s renomination of Isaacman.

What will that new plan entail? You can bet, based on the order’s focus on private enterprise, that it will involve SpaceX, with a strong dash of Blue Origin on the side. It will also include the many American startups planning the first launch of new rockets in 2026 (Rocket Lab, Relativity, Stoke Space) as well as others already established (Firefly and Northrop Grumman). That plan is also going to include the four commercial space station projects under development, as well as all the other peripheral industries involved.

Damage to Orion heat shield caused during re-entry in 2022,
including “cavities resulting from the loss of large chunks”

And you can also bet it will outline the phasing out of SLS, Orion, and possibly Lunar Gateway, as quickly as possible. It might not cancel the already scheduled and funded next three Artemis SLS/Orion missions, but it is also very likely it will recommend that these programs be cancelled thereafter.

The deadline for the release of this report, 90 days from today or the middle of March, also suggests it is intended as a weapon for not only cancelling later SLS/Orion missions, but for forcing a change on the Artemis-2 mission, scheduled for the February-April 2026 time frame. That mission plans to fly four astronauts around the Moon, launched on SLS and flying inside an Orion capsule with a questionable heat shield (see the image to the right) and an untested environmental system. To fly such a manned mission with such questionable equipment is unconscionable, and appears to be another example of NASA putting scheduling ahead of good engineering and safety, as it did with Challenger and Columbia.

The deadline for this report suggests that Trump’s executive order today is precisely aimed at providing Isaacman the political clout he needs to pull those astronauts from that mission, for legitimate safety concerns. When he releases this report in March, he will do so with great fanfare, in a manner that will allow him to take such a politically charged action. All he needs to do is make sure Artemis-2 does not launch beforehand, a delay of only a matter of weeks.

Be prepared for political fireworks come March.