Tag: Orion

Trump picks billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman to run NASA

10:50 am

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman

Capitalism in space: In a decision that is certain to send shock waves throughout NASA and the established aerospace industry, President-elect Donald Trump today announced that he has chosen billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman to be his nominee for NASA administrator.

Isaacman quickly accepted the nomination.

Besides being a jet pilot with extensive experience in the aerospace industry, Isaacman has also commanded two space missions, financed out of his own pocket. Both missions used SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Resilience capsule. Both also pointedly avoided any involvement with NASA, spending several days in free Earth orbit instead of docking with ISS. The second mission achieved several major engineering milestones, testing the first privately built spacesuit during a spacewalk while also flying farthest from Earth since the 1970s Apollo missions.

These flights were part of Isaacman’s own long term space program, dubbed Polaris, with two more missions already in planning stages. The first would be another Dragon orbital mission in which Isaacman had tried to get NASA to shape as a Hubble repair mission. NASA declined. The second is intended as a manned mission around the Moon using SpaceX’s Starship.

That program will now likely get folded into NASA’s Artemis program, which we can all expect Isaacman to force major changes. For one thing, this is another blow to the future of SLS and Orion. As a very successful businessman Isaacman will look with great skepticism at this boondoggle.

For another, Isaacman’s markedly different experiences working with SpaceX versus NASA will likely encourage major bureaucratic changes at the space agency. It is almost certain that Isaacman’s manned flights avoided ISS in order to avoid its Byzantine red tape, that would have likely also blocked use of SpaceX’s spacesuit on a private spacewalk. NASA’s decision to reject Isaacman’s proposal to do a simple but very necessary Hubble repair mission will also likely influence his management of the agency. Isaacman is going to force NASA to depend on the private sector more. He is also likely to reduce the agency’s risk adverse mentality that while often reasonable is many times very counter-productive.

Unlike many of Trump’s other radical nominees, I would be very surprised if Isaacman is not confirmed quickly and with little opposition.

Whether Isaacman will still fly his two remaining private Polaris manned missions is at this moment unknown. Practically it would make sense to cancel them, since he will have much bigger fish to fry at NASA. Emotionally and politically however it would be truly spectacular to have NASA’s administrator fly in space, on a mission using no taxpayer funds. That more than anything would demonstrate the ability of freedom and private enterprise to get things done.

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NASA once again gambling on the lives of its astronauts for political reasons

10:07 am

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

NASA this week began the stacking one of the two strap-on solid-fueled boosters that will help power SLS on the Artemis-3 mission, still officially scheduled for September 2025 and aiming to send four astronauts around the Moon.

A NASA spokesperson told Ars it should take around four months to fully stack the SLS rocket for Artemis II. First, teams will stack the two solid-fueled boosters piece by piece, then place the core stage in between the boosters. Then, technicians will install a cone-shaped adapter on top of the core stage and finally hoist the interim cryogenic propulsion stage, or upper stage, to complete the assembly.

At that point the rocket will be ready for the integration of the manned Orion capsule on top.

The article at the link sees this stacking as a good sign that NASA’s has solved the Orion capsule’s heat shield issue that occurred during the unmanned return from the Moon on the second Artemis mission. The image to the right shows that heat shield afterward, with large chunks missing. Though it landed safely, the damage was much much worse than expected. At the moment NASA officials have said it has found the root cause, but those officials also refuse to say what that root cause is, nor how the agency or Orion’s contractor Lockheed Martin has fixed it.
» Read more

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The dim future of SLS indicated at space business symposium

9:37 am

At a symposium in DC yesterday, a panel of past managers — all of whom had been involved in previous government transitions at NASA — attempted to predict what the consequences will be for NASA with the new Trump administration.

Most of the opinions were pure guesses, some better than others. The real moment of truth came when the entire panel was asked to predict the future of SLS and Orion. The question was put forth by one of the panelists, Lori Garver, who had been NASA’s deputy administrator during the Obama administration, and seemed to have the best understanding of how much the arrival of Trump will likely shake things up significantly.

At one point in the discussion, she asked the panel if they thought the Space Launch System and Orion programs would continue in the next administration. None of the panelists raised their hands. [emphasis mine]

Several of these panelists were big supporters of SLS. Their lack of confidence in its future tells us that SLS and Orion no longer have strong political backing in Washington. Both stand on thin ice.

I predict both will be shut down within the next year, before the next Artemis flight, the first to be manned, to be replaced with a entirely different manned space exploratory program to the Moon and Mars. The decision will be a smart one, but tragically late in coming. SLS should have been dumped years ago. If it had, the U.S. effort to return to the Moon would have been better off, moving forward with a better plan years earlier. Instead, this late decision will once again delay any manned lunar missions for years more.

The change however will be good in the long run, because I expect the new program will be better designed, more efficient, cost less, and be able to do what SLS promised but could never deliver. And it will be based on what private enterprise can accomplish, not a government designed behemoth designed mostly as pork.

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NASA IG: NASA’s effort to build new SLS mobile launcher is an epic disaster

12:20 pm

SLS's two mobile launchers, costing $1 billion
NASA’s bloated SLS mobile launchers

According to a new report [pdf] from NASA’s inspector general, both NASA and its contractor Bechtel have allowed the cost and schedule for the new larger SLS mobile launcher (ML-2) (on the right in the graphic) to go completely out of control, with the first launch on that platform to be delayed again until 2029.

NASA projects the ML-2 will cost over three times more than planned. In 2019, NASA estimated the entire ML-2 project from design through construction would cost under $500 million with construction completed and the ML-2 delivered to NASA by March 2023. In December 2023, NASA estimated the ML-2 project would cost $1.5 billion, including $1.3 billion for the Bechtel contract and $168 million for other project costs, with delivery of the launcher to NASA in November 2026. In June 2024, NASA established the Agency Baseline Commitment (ABC)—the cost and schedule baseline committed to Congress against which a project is measured—for a ML-2 project cost of $1.8 billion and a delivery date of September 2027. Even with the establishment of the ABC, NASA intends to keep Bechtel accountable to the cost and schedule agreed to in December 2023.

Despite the Agency’s increased cost projections, our analysis indicates costs could be even higher due in part to the significant amount of construction work that remains. Specifically, our projections indicate the total cost could reach $2.7 billion by the time Bechtel delivers the ML-2 to NASA. With the time NASA requires after delivery to prepare the launcher, we project the ML-2 will not be ready to support a launch until spring 2029, surpassing the planned September2028 Artemis IV launch date.

This quote actually makes things sounder better than they are. Bechtel’s original contract was for $383 million, which means the IG’s present final estimate of $2.7 billion is more than seven times higher. The contract was awarded in 2019 and was supposed to be completed by 2023, in four years. Instead, at best it will take Bechtel a decade to complete the job.

The IG notes that this contact was cost-plus, and considers this the main cause of these cost overruns. It also notes that NASA has had the option to convert the contract to fixed-price, but has chosen not to do so.

Possibly the most damning aspect of the IG report is its conclusion, which essentially admits that nothing can be done to fix this problem.
» Read more

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First SLS/Orion manned mission faces new delays because of Orion heat shield issues

9:39 am

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

Because the damage to the heat shield on the Orion capsule that flew around the Moon in late 2022 remains somewhat unexplained, NASA is considering delaying the next SLS/Orion mission, presently planned for September 2025 and intended to be the first Artemis flight to carry humans and take them around the Moon.

The heat shield, already installed at the base of the Orion spacecraft, will take the brunt of the heating when the capsule blazes through Earth’s atmosphere at the end of the 10-day mission. On the Artemis I test flight in late 2022, NASA sent an Orion spacecraft to the Moon and back without a crew aboard. The only significant blemish on the test flight was a finding that charred chunks of the heat shield unexpectedly stripped away from the capsule during reentry as temperatures increased to nearly 5,000° Fahrenheit (2,760° Celsius).

The spacecraft safely splashed down, and if any astronauts had been aboard, they would have been fine. However, the inspections of the recovered spacecraft showed divots of heat shield material were missing.

Two years later, despite extensive investigation and analysis, it appears NASA has not yet identified the root cause of the damage. The ablative material used on Orion was similar (though not identical) to the material used successfully on numerous other heat shields since the 1960s, yet it did not perform as expected.

NASA is presently facing three options. Do nothing and fly the next mission as planned, with four astronauts. It could rethink the trajectory used during re-entry, though this would likely not change things significantly unless the astronauts don’t go around the Moon as planned. Or it could change the heat shield itself.

The first two options are very risky, considering the unknowns. The latter involves a major delay of at least two years.

A decision must be made soon however. To meet the agency’s schedule it must begin stacking SLS’s two solid-fueled strap-on boosters next month. Those boosters have a limited life expectancy originally estimated to be one year. In the first unmanned Artemis test flight in 2022, NASA because of other delays stretched that life span to two years, and had no problems with the launch. If it stacks the boosters now and then has to delay for two more years to redesign Orion’s heat shield, those boosters will have been stacked for three years when launched.

Considering how seriously NASA is taking the issues with Starliner, which are likely not as serious as a heat shield that doesn’t work reliably, it would seem insane for NASA to launch Orion manned without fixing its own problem. And yet, for more than two decades NASA has consistently not demanded the same safety standards for SLS that it has demanded for the private commercial rocket startups. We shall see if this pattern now persists.

I continue to believe that the first Artemis lunar landing will not take place before 2030 (at least six years behind schedule). This heat shield dilemma only strengthens that prediction.

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NASA IG: Major technical problems with Orion remain unsolved

9:53 am

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

A just released report [pdf] by NASA’s inspector general has found the major technical problems discovered after the first unmanned Artemis mission of Orion around the Moon remain unsolved, and threaten the safety of the astronauts that NASA plans to send around the Moon on the second Artemis mission.

The problems with Orion are threefold and are quite serious, involving its heat shield, separation bolts, and power distribution.

Specifically, NASA identified more than 100 locations where ablative thermal protective material from Orion’s heat shield wore away differently than expected during reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. Engineers are concurrently investigating ways to mitigate the char loss by modifying the heat shield’s design or altering Orion’s reentry trajectory.

In addition, post-flight inspections of the Crew Module/Service Module separation bolts revealed unexpected melting and erosion that created a gap leading to increased heating inside the bolt. To mitigate the issue for Artemis II, the Orion Program made minor modifications to the separation bolt design and added additional thermal protective barrier material in the bolt gaps.

NASA also recorded 24 instances of power distribution anomalies in Orion’s Electrical PowerSystem. While NASA has determined that radiation was the root cause and is making software changes and developing operational workarounds for Artemis II, without a permanent hardware fix, there is increased risk that further power distribution anomalies could lead to a loss of redundancy, inadequate power, and potential loss of vehicle propulsion and pressurization.

Moreover, like with any engineering system, without understanding the residual effects of introducing design and operational changes, it will be difficult for the Agency to ensure that the mitigations or hardware changes adopted will effectively reduce the risks to astronaut safety.

This is not all.
» Read more

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Technical issues with Lockheed Martin’s Orion capsule to delay next Artemis mission

9:20 am

It appears that technical issues with Lockheed Martin’s Orion capsule are one of the main reasons NASA has had to delay next Artemis mission, the first to put humans inside that capsule and then take them around the Moon.

In January 2024 it was reported that the mission would be delayed from a launch before the end of 2024 until 2025. We now know why:

NASA is working with Orion spacecraft prime contractor Lockheed Martin to resolve a handful of issues that came up late last year during ground testing, forcing the space agency to delay the launch readiness target date for its Artemis II circumlunar mission to September 2025. The Lockheed Martin assembly, test, and launch operations (ATLO) team at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is reinstalling some electronics and implementing workarounds for others affected by an electrical circuit flaw found in digital motor controllers on the spacecraft.

While a resolution to that issue appears to be getting closer, the Orion program and contractor teams are also working through the corrective actions process for a problem with how the Orion batteries handle the shock of an extreme abort case.

In other words, Lockheed Martin discovered these two electrical issues only last year, after spending almost two decades and more than $15 billion developing Orion.

As I predicted in January, “None of these dates will be met. I predict that further delays will be announced next year and the year after that, pushing all these missions back again, in small increments.” I also predicted that NASA will be lucky to land a human on the Moon by 2030, a mere fifteen years after its original target date of 2015, set by George Bush Jr. in 2004.

In the meantime, expect SpaceX’s Starship to begin regularly commercial and governmental flights to the Moon in the next five years. Long before SLS and Orion put humans on the Moon, Starship will be doing it privately for less cost.

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NASA makes it official: The entire Artemis schedule is delayed

9:17 am

Surprise! NASA yesterday officially confirmed the rumors reported earlier about delays in its Artemis Moon program, outlining a new schedule that pushes all the launches back from months to more than a year.

NASA will now target September 2025 for Artemis II, the first crewed Artemis mission around the Moon, and September 2026 for Artemis III, which is planned to land the first astronauts near the lunar South Pole. Artemis IV, the first mission to the Gateway lunar space station, remains on track for 2028.

The agency cited issues with its Orion capsule that need fixing, including unexpected damage to its heat shield during the first test flight in 2022, battery problems found during ground testing, and new issues discovered with the as-yet unflown environmental systems designed to keep the astronauts alive.

One rumor that did not turn out to be true was the suggestion that first manned lunar landing would be shifted from Artemis 3 to Artemis 4, to give NASA more time to test things.

More details about the press briefing can be found here.

No one should take any of these dates seriously. NASA technique for announcing delays in this moon program have consistently been wrong. It announces small delays incrementally, to hide the fact that it knows the actual launch will be delayed far more that politics allows. The program was first proposed in 2004 with a planned landing in 2015. Since then NASA has announced numerous delays numerous times, always in small amounts. Yet by 2015 it was clear the first landing wouldn’t happen for at least a decade (after a decade of work), because of Obama’s unilateral cancellation of the initial program and Congress’s demand that it be re-established in a different form. By 2022 it was clear that the first manned landing mission was at least five years away.

Thus these new dates will certainly slip. You can bet on it. As I noted yesterday, NASA will be lucky to make that first manned lunar landing by 2030.

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Japan & NASA negotiating plan to put Japanese astronaut on later Moon landing mission

3:15 pm

According to the Japanese press, Japanese and American government officials are negotiating a plan to include a Japanese astronaut on one of the later Artemis Moon landing missions, presently hoping to fly in the late 2020s.

Japan has been negotiating with the United States, aiming for its first landing on the moon in the late 2020s. Tokyo and Washington will establish and sign an agreement on the activities of Japanese astronauts on the moon as early as next month, according to several government sources.

These stories are likely linked to the blather from Vice President Harris last week saying the U.S. will fly an international astronaut to the Moon before the end of the decade. At the time NASA officials would not confirm her statement, other than to say that NASA had agreed to fly European, Canadian, and Japanese astronauts to its Lunar Gateway station as part of its Artemis lunar program.

Several important details must be noted. First, the schedule for Artemis, as designed by NASA using SLS, Orion, Lunar Gateway, and Starship, is incredibly optimistic. The first manned mission is presently scheduled for 2025, but no one believes that date, including many at NASA. It will likely slip to 2026 or even 2027.

Second, the program is very fluid, and could undergo major changes with a new administration, especially because of the high cost of SLS. Once Starship/Superheavy is flying, at a cost expected to less than 1% of SLS, with an ability to fly frequently instead of once every two or three years, a new government might scrap the entire Artemis program as designed. A shift from SLS to Starship entirely might actually increase the number of astronauts going to the Moon, both from the U.S. and the entire Artemis Accords alliance.

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NASA engineers still struggling to understand why Orion’s heat shield ablated so much

9:10 am

NASA engineers still do not understand why the heat shield on its Orion capsule ablated as it did during its return to Earth on the first unmanned Artemis-1 mission.

The agency is still running tests. It also expressed confidence that the issue will not delay the Artemis-2 mission, the first intended to carry humans on SLS and in Orion and still scheduled for late 2024.

At the same time, agency officials hinted that the third Artemis mission, which has always been planned as putting humans on the Moon for the first time since Apollo, might not achieve that goal. It is still not clear whether the mission’s lunar spacesuits as well as SpaceX’s Starship lunar lander will be ready on time. The latter is facing serious regulatory problems imposed by the Biden administration that is generally preventing it from flight testing the spacecraft.

That second Artemis mission, the first planned to carry humans, is one that actually at present carries the most risk. It will not only use a heat shield that at present engineers do not entirely understand, it will be the first Orion capsule to have the environmental systems necessary for its human cargo. NASA is putting humans on the first test flight of those systems.

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ESA transfers its Artemis-2 Orion service module to NASA

9:18 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday officially handed over to NASA its second completed Orion service module, to be used in 2024 on the first manned Artemis mission, dubbed Artemis-2, that will carry four astronauts on a mission around the Moon.

The European Service Module-2 will power the Orion spacecraft on the Artemis II mission that will see NASA astronauts commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen complete flyby of the Moon and return to Earth.

The crew will fly Orion to 8889 km beyond the Moon before completing a lunar flyby and returning to Earth. The mission will take a minimum of eight days and will collect valuable flight test data, in the first time for over 50 years that humans have voyaged to our natural satellite.

The odds of this launching in 2024 are relatively slim. It will also be the first time NASA will be flying Orion’s environmental systems (the systems that keep the astronauts alive). We all hope those system work perfectly this first time, since people will be on board.

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NASA inspector general finds more cost overruns in the agency’s SLS rocket program

10:12 am

Surprise! Surprise! A new NASA inspector general report [pdf] has found that the agency’s SLS rocket program is continuing to experience cost overruns and mismanagement that are “obscene”, as noted in this news report.

An independent report published Thursday contained troubling findings about the money spent by the agency on propulsion for the Space Launch System rocket. Moreover, the report by NASA Inspector General Paul Martin warns that if these costs are not controlled, it could jeopardize plans to return to the Moon.

Bluntly, Martin wrote that if the agency does not rein in spending, “NASA and its contracts will continue to exceed planned cost and schedule, resulting in a reduced availability of funds, delayed launches, and the erosion of the public’s trust in the agency’s ability to responsibly spend taxpayer money and meet mission goals and objectives—including returning humans safely to the Moon.”

Things are really much worse than this, mostly because it appears the Marshall Space Flight Center that runs the SLS program for NASA uses cost-plus contracts, which are essentially a blank check for contractors to run up costs endlessly, all of which the government must cover, and allows the process to go over-schedule against its own regulations. Furthermore, the cost overruns are for rockets and engines that are not newly developed, but in use for decades by Northrop Grumman and Aerojet Rocketdyne.

Note that this really isn’t news. Anyone with any intellectual honesty at all will know that every aspect of SLS and Orion is mismanaged and will go over budget and behind schedule endlessly. These problems are not a bug, however, but a feature of the system. The goals of SLS and Orion are not really to build a rocket to explore the solar system but to create an endless jobs program in congressional districts here on Earth. This misguided approach meanwhile robs America of a viable space effort because the money wasted could have actually been used to jumpstart a viable and competitive space-faring economy that actually achieves something.

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