NASA's Artemis Program Updates and Discussion Thread 5

[sdsds]

October 2025: FY2026 begins.  Even if Congress only does a continuing resolution, doesn't that allow NASA funds to be juggled internally?

There's good coverage of this topic at:
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R42647.pdf#page=10

The short answer is that Congress has to explicitly authorize any new start programs in a CR. Of course this assumes the administration chooses to follow the law in such matters.

[yg1968]

However if Congress does agree, and as of October 1st of 2025 the SLS program is cancelled, then I'm not sure I see a path to getting Americans back on the Moon during the Trump II term in office.

Trump just wants something big to happen during his term.  He can't have Mars, because there's zero chance of a crewed SpaceX launch to Mars prior to the 2028 window, which can't put boots on the ground until 2Q2029.  And, as things stand right now (I'm assuming NET 1Q2028 for Artemis III right now), a fairly modest additional slip will put a lunar landing during his term in jeopardy.

I am skeptical that Artemis II and III will be cancelled but perhaps that Artemis IV and SLS Block 1B will get cancelled.  Even if SpaceX doesn't make it to Mars before 2028, getting funding in the next few years for a new public-private partnership program for the human exploration of Mars would be a huge achievement for the Trump Administration. 

[Mr. Scott]

No matter what party you think you’re a part of, SLS and everything associated with NASA human spaceflight has to be cancelled before Artemis II happens.

I think HLS gets cancelled along with it unfortunately.  There are just too many small steps to get to a crewed lunar landing at this point.

[dchenevert]

No matter what party you think you’re on, SLS and everything associated with NASA human spaceflight has to be cancelled before Artemis II happens.

I think HLS gets cancelled along with it unfortunately.  There are just too many small steps to get to a crewed lunar landing at this point.

A serious question, not intended as snark: what do you mean by Artemis II? I >assume< it would not have a lot of Alabama or Boeing in it, but would rather ask than guess.

[OTV Booster]

Star Factory will be up and running real soon but that does not guarantee running smoothly. Every new production line has kinks to work out, even if it's duplicating an already established flow. Increasing output has its own impedance. I think it'll work out but also recognize that excrement occurs.

"Success" oriented schedules can only tolerate small issues. For instance, if they find that the flaps on Ship V2 don't work as planned, that would slow things down considerably. Heck, even if everything works as planned, that might mean that they are being too conservative.

The big question will be how all concerned will react when/if a flight that everyone thought should go well, doesn't.

Even with political grease a real mishap will slow things down. If SS gets permission to EDL over population for a catch (not guaranteed) everything had better work right. Not much reasonable wiggle room on this.

Yeah, overflight of populated areas will cause a LOT of people to be watching and offering opinions about safety.

But we can't know until they try, and they have to try in order to learn. Luckily they have the money to persevere, which is more important that political capital at this point...

It's hard to imagine a first SS catch attempt on the east coast. The western most piece of Challenger debris was a tile near Littlefield, Tx. That's midway between Clovis, NM and Lubbock. Offset that so it would miss the east coast and that puts a landing in the eastern Atlantic. Excepts there's no platform that we know of.


Vandenberg would work but it doesn't have a tower. Maybe go back to legs for proof of concept landings and confidence building at Vandy?


With the engine count being so much lower than the booster and the potential for rapid design change, maybe a booster catch doesn't have that high a priority. This rubs the wrong way but can't be ruled out.

[OTV Booster]

Even with political grease a real mishap will slow things down. If SS gets permission to EDL over population for a catch (not guaranteed) everything had better work right. Not much reasonable wiggle room on this. Fumbling a booster catch, a serious oopsy during orbital refueling that blasts shrapnel all over LEO or spewing big chunks back to earth... they say space is hard for a reason.

EDL over populated area will be tricky. Therefore I'm wondering why not to land SS off the west coast on the drone ship? This would allow recovery and subsystem reuse rather than reuse of the whole SS. Still probably a step in good direction.

Shrapnel blast in LEO would probably be bad. On the other side how easy it is to get mathalox explosion in vacuum of space? Also SS is quite tough so don't think a lot of shrapnel would be created (heat shield tiles?) and most would re-enter quickly. Your typical commsat is very fragile and creates a big cloud on explosion. Still a major safety issue.   

There's no tower on the drone ship and I strongly suspect a tower would make it too top heavy for safety. They could build a tower at Vandenberg to build confidence and avoid population overflights. Very little GSE needed unless SX decides to start launching there. And I'm sure that Vandy has a rocket garden yearning for a StarShip.

[VSECOTSPE]

A question:  Let's assume that Trump decides to cancel SLS and directs NASA to issue a BAA for a commercial cislunar crew program.  Can that BAA be issued before its funding is appropriated by Congress?  If it can, then this arm-wave at a schedule would be possible:

It’s usually a year from funding authority to run a procurement and get a performer on contract.  So your draft schedule may be a little on the fast side for business-as-usual, but you’re not making business-as-usual assumptions here, either.  Regardless, with the right cover from above and staffing from below, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with what you got.  Some alternatives and considerations below.

Real soon: Trump makes the decision, communicates it to the transition team, and NASA-management-in-waiting starts planning.

For certain existing performers already on contract, it may (emphasis on “may”) be possible to assign them task orders for lunar crew transport under their existing contracts.  I’m obviously talking about SX and BO’s contracts for HLS.  I never dealt with the legal nuances of when the work embodied in a task order requires a new competition or can be executed under an existing contract.  But I’ve seen a lot of stuff at NASA that I thought should be competed get tasked out to existing contractors.  If you really wanted to shock and awe, you’d at least explore this possibility with procurement and the general counsel.

I’d still advise running a competition for a second or third provider for reasons of maintaining competition and stifling protests, even if they have to funded at a slower “follower” position behind the leader or two.  There is some precedent for this bifurcated task-and-compete approach in HLS, where SX was tasked with a second lander while a competition was run for a second provider that BO won.

I’d also look into whether this could be run under Space Act Agreement (SAA) authority, like we did for COTS.  The FAR sucks, frankly, and if you care about getting things done and done right, then the ability to tailor SAAs is the way to go.  If you want to slow things down and complicate them, then you stick your round program into the square hole of a BAA, which is what Congress did to CCDev.  To the extent Trump II/DOGE/etc. care about regulatory reform, procurement should be part of that.  Getting the FAR under control and/or providing/exercising alternatives to it would go a long ways towards empowering good decision making by government managers here and elsewhere.

Regardless of BAA versus SAA, at least a month or two before a formal solicitation release, I would run an industry day, release a draft set of requirements, and release a draft solicitation for comment.  This builds advocacy within industry, which you may need, and provides vital feedback so your requirements and solicitation don’t create a lot of unintended consequences.

March 2025:  NASA budget request zeroes out at least SLS and issues the CCCP BAA.

Might not abruptly zero out SLS.   Might phase it out after Artemis III if we care about whether we beat China back to the Moon.  Even if not, that pill may be easier for appropriators, industry, and workforce to swallow over time versus all at once, although expect congressional attempts to add a flight or two as happened with STS closeout.  Regardless, there should be some detailed parallel effort to retain and retask the parts of the Orion/SLS workforce that can help with other architecture and program elements and transition the rest with dignity and care.  It’s the right thing to do after decades of mismanaging that workforce, but probably also a political necessity.

October 2025: FY2026 begins.  Even if Congress only does a continuing resolution, doesn't that allow NASA funds to be juggled internally?

The color of money we’re talking about here would be two-year funding, meaning that NASA has up to two years from the start of the fiscal year to put that funding on contract.  The fiscal term for this is “obligate” the funding.  So there should be unobligated FY23 and FY24 funding in the relevant appropriations account that NASA could reprogram to this effort, whether that is putting the funding on new task orders under existing contracts and/or running new solicitations.  NASA has to submit an Operating Plan Change to OMB and the appropriations committees before such a reprogramming.  Presumably OMB would be working hand-in-glove on this so that permission would be pro forma.  IIRC, the appropriations committees have a couple weeks to raise an objection to an Operating Plan Change after receiving it.  If they say nothing, then NASA can implicitly move out on the reprogramming.

If NASA wants to move money between appropriations accounts, it can propose to move up to 10% (IIRC) of the value of any account to another in an Operating Plan Change.  But I’d advise against that.  It’s one thing to reprogram unobligated human space exploration money for human space exploration tasks.  It’s another to reprogram space science, space technology, or aeronautics money.  You want to be carful about how many rice bowls you’re tipping over at once.

November 2025:  Contract finalized.

A bit of a wild card in all this is whether Trump II cares whether they have a NASA Administrator installed before moving out, and if so, who is that and when are they onboard.  Ideally they would be onboard and running this.  But if selection and confirmation of a new Administrator takes months to a year, the existing civil servants may need to move out, although it’s hard to see Jim “don’t change anything” Free moving smartly on this if he’s Acting Administrator.

The short answer is that Congress has to explicitly authorize any new start programs in a CR.

It depends on what level the program is defined at.  Is Artemis or Moon-to-Mars the program?  Or is each architecture element (Orion, SLS, HLS, etc.) a program?  I don’t know.  But under the former, NASA could start of solicitation without new program authorization.  Not so much the latter, although maybe tasks could be put on existing contracts.

There’s also a footnote in that CRS guide about new starts being easier or something with multi-year funding.  I’m not sure that I understand why, but that is the color of money we’d be talking about here.

Hope this helps.  FWIW...

[DanClemmensen]

NASA has already contracted for Starship HLS, and I assume (with no data) by SpaceX' internal accounting that SpaceX will make at least a small profit that covers the incremental HLS design, the test, and the actual NASA missions. If so, SpaceX will be in position to offer Moon missions for a crew of four from Earth to the lunar surface and back for somewhere between $1B and $2B, without needing any new design.

What will NASA do if SpaceX simply advertises such a mission on its price sheet?

[Mr. Scott]

No matter what party you think you’re on, SLS and everything associated with NASA human spaceflight has to be cancelled before Artemis II happens.

I think HLS gets cancelled along with it unfortunately.  There are just too many small steps to get to a crewed lunar landing at this point.

A serious question, not intended as snark: what do you mean by Artemis II? I >assume< it would not have a lot of Alabama or Boeing in it, but would rather ask than guess.

In other words , the entire mission that takes astronauts around the moon.  It was supposed to fly originally 22 months after Artemis I… which is now. 

So that would chop out Alabama stuff pretty good.

At least SLS, but also Orion, Gateway, HLS, EUS, and CLPS.  Everything that was destined for a crew or basic surface ‘stuff’ on the moon (lunar terrain vehicles, nuclear power units, everything ).

Then include Commercial Crew such as Starliner.

Then include the competition such as Crew Dragon, Blue Origins HLS.  And then ISS.  Because it cannot be affordable without competition.

With any scenario for SLS to be cut, I think the only way that happens is to move the Space Force HQ to Alabama or really just adjacent to the Space museum.  Maybe the Space Force HQ could be located in the museum area, or perhaps next to a Denny’s or a Taco Bell in Huntsville.  Nothing too big though.

There are good folks in HSV.  Just cannot have nice things.

[Mr. Scott]

Is the SX IFT-6 flight in limbo now that Elon is a nominee?  (Artemis III reference to HLS makes this on topic.)

[TheRadicalModerate]

However if Congress does agree, and as of October 1st of 2025 the SLS program is cancelled, then I'm not sure I see a path to getting Americans back on the Moon during the Trump II term in office.

Trump just wants something big to happen during his term.  He can't have Mars, because there's zero chance of a crewed SpaceX launch to Mars prior to the 2028 window, which can't put boots on the ground until 2Q2029.  And, as things stand right now (I'm assuming NET 1Q2028 for Artemis III right now), a fairly modest additional slip will put a lunar landing during his term in jeopardy.

I am skeptical that Artemis II and III will be cancelled but perhaps that Artemis IV and SLS Block 1B will get cancelled.  Even if SpaceX doesn't make it to Mars before 2028, getting funding in the next few years for a new public-private partnership program for the human exploration of Mars would be a huge achievement for the Trump Administration.

That seems like a possible, maybe even probable outcome.  But if for some reason Artemis III is going to be re-worked as a commercial cislunar mission, it makes no sense to risk astronauts on Artemis II.

The low-hanging fruit here is clearly to kill EUS, ML2, and maybe the Gateway, and then use that money to bootstrap commercial operations.  From there, short of some convincing case that ICPS needs to go back into production, Artemis IV+ can't happen as SLS missions.  Then commercial--hopefully with two sources--is the only way to go.

[Coastal Ron]

...
The low-hanging fruit here is clearly to kill EUS, ML2, and maybe the Gateway, and then use that money to bootstrap commercial operations.  From there, short of some convincing case that ICPS needs to go back into production, Artemis IV+ can't happen as SLS missions.  Then commercial--hopefully with two sources--is the only way to go.

Wow, just thinking about how many corporate jobs that would eliminate during the Trump II era, and how many NASA jobs that would eliminate too. I think it will depend on how many are affected in Republican states and districts in order to have an idea of how much resistance there could be...

And I'm still not sure that would allow for a human landing by 2028, but the devil is always in the details, so we'll see if the Trump II Administration is good at coming up with a plan that could eliminate all those jobs while developing new systems to accelerate (or not miss) current mission timelines.

[Paul451]

The low-hanging fruit here is clearly to kill EUS, ML2, and maybe the Gateway, and then use that money to [...]

What money? The stated goal of cutting "government waste" is to lower taxes and/or pay down debt. If SLS and associated programs get cut, that money will be taken from NASA's budget, along with the funding of whatever other aerospace programs they consider wasteful.

Any Republican Congress that accepts the rest of the cuts from other programs, depts & agencies is not going to allow one area (other than the military) to be exempt.

[yg1968]

The low-hanging fruit here is clearly to kill EUS, ML2, and maybe the Gateway, and then use that money to [...]

What money? The stated goal of cutting "government waste" is to lower taxes and/or pay down debt. If SLS and associated programs get cut, that money will be taken from NASA's budget, along with the funding of whatever other aerospace programs they consider wasteful.

Any Republican Congress that accepts the rest of the cuts from other programs, depts & agencies is not going to allow one area (other than the military) to be exempt.

As I posted in the space policy forum (see the link below), the newly selected Senate leader, John Thune said that the filibuster rule is here to stay which means that appropriations bills will need bipartisan support in order to get to the required 60 votes.  The 2017 tax cuts will need to be renewed probably through reconciliation which requires 50 votes but regular appropriations bills (such as the CJS one that includes NASA) are unlikely to go through reconciliation and will thus still require 60 votes.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=60473.msg2641135#msg2641135

[TheRadicalModerate]

The low-hanging fruit here is clearly to kill EUS, ML2, and maybe the Gateway, and then use that money to [...]

What money? The stated goal of cutting "government waste" is to lower taxes and/or pay down debt. If SLS and associated programs get cut, that money will be taken from NASA's budget, along with the funding of whatever other aerospace programs they consider wasteful.

Any Republican Congress that accepts the rest of the cuts from other programs, depts & agencies is not going to allow one area (other than the military) to be exempt.

Any Republican Congress will do what Trump says.  They're terrified of him.  The real question is whether Elon has the clout he thinks he has.

SLS/Orion may be cancelled, but the "Moon to Mars Transportation System" isn't going to be zeroed out.  It'll be replaced with something that's cheaper per mission.  If we're lucky, we'll get 2x - 4x the cadence for the same cost.  If some of the budget gets clawed back, we might wind up with a slower-than-desirable cadence, but even that isn't for sure.  And, unlike SLS, you don't have to pay a standing army of workers to do nothing if cadence drops, like you do with SLS.  That may make the ESDMD budget a bit more poachable in the long run, but it's hard to see how things could wind up worse than they are now.

[sstli2]

The low-hanging fruit here is clearly to kill EUS, ML2, and maybe the Gateway, and then use that money to [...]

What money? The stated goal of cutting "government waste" is to lower taxes and/or pay down debt. If SLS and associated programs get cut, that money will be taken from NASA's budget, along with the funding of whatever other aerospace programs they consider wasteful.

Any Republican Congress that accepts the rest of the cuts from other programs, depts & agencies is not going to allow one area (other than the military) to be exempt.

Any Republican Congress will do what Trump says.  They're terrified of him.  The real question is whether Elon has the clout he thinks he has.

SLS/Orion may be cancelled, but the "Moon to Mars Transportation System" isn't going to be zeroed out.  It'll be replaced with something that's cheaper per mission.  If we're lucky, we'll get 2x - 4x the cadence for the same cost.  If some of the budget gets clawed back, we might wind up with a slower-than-desirable cadence, but even that isn't for sure.  And, unlike SLS, you don't have to pay a standing army of workers to do nothing if cadence drops, like you do with SLS.  That may make the ESDMD budget a bit more poachable in the long run, but it's hard to see how things could wind up worse than they are now.

I think "infatuated with" is a more appropriate term than "terrified of", but that's neither here nor there.

[yg1968]

The low-hanging fruit here is clearly to kill EUS, ML2, and maybe the Gateway, and then use that money to [...]

What money? The stated goal of cutting "government waste" is to lower taxes and/or pay down debt. If SLS and associated programs get cut, that money will be taken from NASA's budget, along with the funding of whatever other aerospace programs they consider wasteful.

Any Republican Congress that accepts the rest of the cuts from other programs, depts & agencies is not going to allow one area (other than the military) to be exempt.

Any Republican Congress will do what Trump says.  They're terrified of him.  The real question is whether Elon has the clout he thinks he has.

They are not terrified of him. Trump would have preferred Rick Scott as Senate leader but the Senate did their own thing as they always do and elected the guy that is the most qualified to be Senate leader, John Thune. There will be other examples, Lara Trump won't be selected as a Senator by Ron DeSantis to replace Marco Rubio. Some of Trump's appointee are expected to be rejected by the Senate.

[DistantTemple]

NASA has already contracted for Starship HLS, and I assume (with no data) by SpaceX' internal accounting that SpaceX will make at least a small profit that covers the incremental HLS design, the test, and the actual NASA missions. If so, SpaceX will be in position to offer Moon missions for a crew of four from Earth to the lunar surface and back for somewhere between $1B and $2B, without needing any new design.

What will NASA do if SpaceX simply advertises such a mission on its price sheet?

Agreed.
I thought that the third Polaris mission was planned to transfer astronauts from a Dragon to a Starship.
If SLS or Orion face delays it is not hard to imagine SpaceX completing such a Polaris 3 mission, and an uncrewed Starship moon landing. It will then be Elon's choice, whether he waits for NASA, or offers a 100% SpaceX moon landing to NASA, or Jared. Would NASA find a way of accepting?
Having got so far, a moon landing would be a massive boost to SX's private (Elon's) plans for Mars human landing. The data gained may indicate crucial changes to Starship, so SX delaying a moon landing out of deference to NASA seems unlikely.

[RJMAZ]

I think the best option is to cancel SLS and give the heavy lift job to a derivative of Starship. The current European Service Module and Orion can sit on top of Starship. This Starship derivative would not take very long to develop.

Quoting myself as it has become relevant. My money is still on this happening. You heard it from me first

Starship V3 with the upper stage fully disposable should exceed SLS in terms of TLI payload. The only thing that needs to be done is removal of the Starship cargo bay area and it replaced with an adaptor that tapers down to the European Service Module diameter. The ESM uses hypergolic fuels so there is no need to run extra fuel connections from the launch tower.

[RJMAZ]

I think HLS gets cancelled along with it unfortunately.  There are just too many small steps to get to a crewed lunar landing at this point.

I also think HLS will be cancelled.

I think the Blue Origin will lander will be used for direct to moon. A fully disposable Starship can send the Blue Origin lander, European Service Module and Orion Capsule all in a single direct flight. Replicates the Apollo concept.

Or New Glenn sends the Blue Origin lander and Starship sends the ESM and Orion capsule. Super Heavy could probably be reusable if it does not need to send the lander.