NASA's Artemis Program Updates and Discussion Thread 6

[thespacecow]

Isaacman thinks NEP or nuclear surface power is necessary to get astronauts back from Mars: https://x.com/rookisaacman/status/1937591120524886444 (this is wrong, as Casey Handmer pointed out in the replies, but let's put that aside)

This doesn't contradict with using Starship as Mars lander (or ascent vehicle) at all.

And he said NEP is mainly to give MSFC some things to work on, and that NEP program will first have a demo with a camera, then a space tug to move payloads like telescope to Lagrangian points, this is the extent of his NEP ambitions in this term. People who think he will use NEP instead of Starship in NASA human to Mars plan are delusional.

[Robotbeat]

Isn't nuclear electric cheaper?

No one really knows.  An expert NRC panel recommended NASA establish common metrics for nuke thermal and nuke electric, run parallel R&D programs against those metrics, and make an intelligent downselect after more was known.  It’s jumping the gun to conclude that nuke electric is the right path now.

It’s all pink elephants, regardless.  Thse are the key quotes from the CNN article:

With this summer’s “Big Beautiful Bill” expressly extending the SLS program through at least the next four missions, it appears Isaacman may delay implementing a bold new focus on nuclear electric propulsion research…

The recent push to bolster NASA’s moon missions, including a $10 billion influx Congress gave the agency’s human spaceflight efforts in July, “brings clarity to the topic,” Isaacman said in his social media statement.

Isaacman agreed months ago that it’s Orion/SLS until well after Isaacman’s tenure has ended.

Note that similar trades have been done for years. The group at NASA Glenn did a series of studies comparing different architectures, and all you really get is a different number of launches. Note that nearly all NASA’s NEP studies assume using Xenon, and the amount needed is greater than the annual production of the entire world, notwithstanding that almost all Xenon production was from Russia and Ukraine.

Nuclear-electric isnt cheaper. All you get is like 4-5 fewer Starship (SHLV) launches, or 470t  IMLEO in this case.

Makes sense if you’re stuck with $10,000/kg and SLS. Makes no sense if you have RLVs and $100-1000/kg launch costs.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140002512/downloads/20140002512.pdf
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-NAS-PURL-gpo215649/pdf/GOVPUB-NAS-PURL-gpo215649.pdf

[Robotbeat]

It bothers me that these studies only use mass and such as figures of merit instead of some estimate of relative cost.

[Vultur]

And he said NEP is mainly to give MSFC some things to work on,

IMO this is the key point.

In a world where Starship works, there is very little point for NASA centers to be developing human spaceflight hardware at all until we're ready to do outer solar system (which is a really long way away). And the science program budgets can't support things like nuclear-electric.

But those NASA centers exist, and there's strong political pressure for them to continue to exist and have work to do.

(I personally think that once , say Blue Moon flies NASA should get out of the hardware business entirely ... But that's not politically likely.)

[Robotbeat]

NEP is useful for beyond Mars. With Starship and all the gazillion reusable launch vehicles being developed, we should be going all over the solar system. NEP doesn't help in the inner solar system, but it's critical for large scale missions as you get to like Jupiter and especially Saturn.

[thespacecow]

What would a “simplified” Starship plan for the Moon actually look like?
The problem is that it may be difficult to find options that both NASA and SpaceX like.

Eric Berger – Nov 13, 2025 7:09 AM |  68

A second option would be to rely solely on SpaceX hardware.

I don’t expect NASA to be interested in this idea, but it’s worth discussing. Nearly a year ago, in the immediate aftermath of the presidential election, Republican space officials were considering canceling Artemis and substituting a “competition” similar to the Commercial Cargo program. It was thought that both SpaceX and Blue Origin would bid plans to land humans on the Moon and that NASA would fund both.

These plans have largely fallen by the wayside in the last 12 months, though. NASA (and perhaps most importantly, paymasters in Congress) prefer to stick with the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft for the initial Artemis missions.

Except thanks to Duffy's "opening up the contract", this option is now back on the table, I expect SpaceX to take full advantage of it.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Except thanks to Duffy's "opening up the contract", this option is now back on the table, I expect SpaceX to take full advantage of it.

AFAICT, Duffy didn't do anything other than shoot his mouth off.  You can't just wave a magic mouth and "open up a contract".

It does appear that NASA asked for simplifications within the scope of the existing HLS contracts.  If you look at the recent list of supplemental agreements to SpaceX's HLS contract, you'll find about $631K added in late October and early November.  There's also $501K added on to the Blue Origin HLS contract in the same timeframe. I wouldn't be incredibly surprised if this was money added to both contracts, at the administrator's discretion, to perform these studies.

That said, I do think this whole episode made Elon much less likely to withhold criticism of Team SLS/Orion, and gave him the platform with which to express his annoyance semi-publicly and on the record. 

If summaries of these don't go public, I expect leaks.

[thespacecow]

Except thanks to Duffy's "opening up the contract", this option is now back on the table, I expect SpaceX to take full advantage of it.

AFAICT, Duffy didn't do anything other than shoot his mouth off.  You can't just wave a magic mouth and "open up a contract".

It does appear that NASA asked for simplifications within the scope of the existing HLS contracts.  If you look at the recent list of supplemental agreements to SpaceX's HLS contract, you'll find about $631K added in late October and early November.  There's also $501K added on to the Blue Origin HLS contract in the same timeframe. I wouldn't be incredibly surprised if this was money added to both contracts, at the administrator's discretion, to perform these studies.

I mean if Duffy didn't shoot off his mouth, NASA wouldn't be asking for simplifications within the scope of the existing contract, so I think it's fine to credit him for that. On a separate note, I think for laymans "opening up the contract" is a good description of what's happening, but I'm not going to die on this hill.

But the broader point is that by implementing the simplifications, NASA can realize most of the original Republican plans Berger described:
1. Cancel Artemis: If NASA approves an all-SpaceX architecture which shuts out SLS/Orion/Gateway, then that's a good step towards cancelling them (which I think is what "cancel Artemis" means in this context). The main difference is that Blue Origin's architecture presumably would still require SLS/Orion
2. Competition similar to the Commercial Cargo program: This is straight forward, by allowing Blue Origin to compete for first landing, they can easily accomplish this.

The beauty of this arrangement is that none of this requires Congressional approval, NASA can just do it under the name of "opening up the contract" which sounds bad for SpaceX, and thus would please SpaceX haters which are many among industry and Congress. Further more, SLS/Orion supporters are very confident that Starship HLS either wouldn't work at all, or would be so late that Blue Origin will win by default, so they wouldn't see an all-SpaceX architecture as a big threat.

That said, I do think this whole episode made Elon much less likely to withhold criticism of Team SLS/Orion, and gave him the platform with which to express his annoyance semi-publicly and on the record. 

If summaries of these don't go public, I expect leaks.

Elon hasn't said anything about SLS/Orion after the dustup with Duffy. Like I said in the other thread, he's not looking to throw bad words against SLS/Orion, he's going to crush them, via action.

He didn't do this before because: a. He doesn't care about the Moon; b. He doesn't view them as a threat and doesn't want to rock the boat. Now both conditions have changed, the glove is going to come off.

[catdlr]

U.S. government reopens NASA after six weeks, will New Glenn make Artemis news in 2026? - November 15, 2025

Nov 16, 2025  ✪ Members first on November 15, 2025
The U.S. government reopened at the end of the week, but it was closed for six weeks, so things will return to normal over several days.  At least while funding is available to NASA, which currently until the end of January, so stay tuned.

For now, NASA public affairs has started posting a backlog of imagery, but there's also a lot of interest in whether February is still viable for an Artemis II launch opportunity.  (Also stay tuned.)

In and around the government reopening, I'll go through the new Starship HLS date of end of 2028 and what that might mean for Artemis III and Artemis IV, since that would be well after those official, but probably stale launch dates.  There's also other news:  Airbus finished the Artemis IV Orion European Service Module, and L3Harris hot-fired their second new RS-25 engine, with the help of NASA Stennis Space Center.

Imagery is courtesy of NASA, except where noted.


Sean Duffy on the Shawn Ryan Show:    https://youtube.com/watch?v=7Vjh7pbMJI0

L3Harris RS-25 SLS engine factory tour and program update:   https://youtube.com/watch?v=fBilYfXaVT0


Links to social media posts:
https://x.com/AirbusSpace/status/1987855738132140483
https://bsky.app/profile/nasawatch.bsky.social/post/3m5hubt33oc2y
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1988807509428318534
https://x.com/JeffBezos/status/1989092331635765378


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00:00 Intro
01:09 U.S. government reopens...until late January
06:26 Artemis III Watch: Starship HLS is end of 2028?
11:52 Other news and notes: Is New Glenn in Artemis 2026 news after a successful flight 2?
13:58 Airbus completes ESM-4 for the Artemis IV Orion, shipping to KSC soon
16:40 L3Harris and NASA Stennis acceptance test Artemis V RS-25 engine 20002
18:56 Thanks for watching!

[Proponent]

Remember when Gerst was saying that an SLS launch cadence of less than one per year is unsafe?

With a crew now scheduled to fly on SLS more than 3 years after the preceding launch, has anyone in the program addressed this issue? Possibilities include: Gerst was wrong, there are mitigating factors, or it's just being swept under the rug.

[DanClemmensen]

Remember when Gerst was saying that an SLS launch cadence of less than one per year is unsafe?

With a crew now scheduled to fly on SLS more than 3 years after the preceding launch, has anyone in the program addressed this issue? Possibilities include: Gerst was wrong, there are mitigating factors, or it's just being swept under the rug.

Fourth possibility: not exactly swept under the rug, which implies an active approach to suppressing mention of the problem. More like a silent consensus to not raise the issue, and nobody in NASA having explicit responsibility to do so.

[sdsds]

Remember when Gerst was saying that an SLS launch cadence of less than one per year is unsafe?

ISTM what Gerst really meant was that a program flying with a yearly cadence costs less than a program flying with an equal level of safety that flies less often.

[JIS]

So how can Artemis program realistically speed up Lunar landings?
As far as I know there are 2 basic options:

1. SpaceX will propose to keep doing the same. Fully reusable Starship, loads of refueling and "battle star" type of ridiculously big and heavy HLS. However, the reusable Starship still doesn't work, refueling also doesn't work and Starship HLS is nowhere to see.

2. BO will propose to use several (many) BM MK1 derived tugs to push around BO HLS crew cabin. At least they have working launcher NG 7x2 and BM MK1 has a good chance to do demo lunar landing in 2026. Still they probably need to field NG 9x4 launcher for bigger payloads, they also need to tweak BM MK1 for a tug service and most importantly they need to develop HLS cabin where they have minimum experience.

We can argue who has better chance to succeed but I think that chances for any of these architectures are relatively slim, especially in short term.

IMO it would be worth to investigate two more elements which have potential to be useful in the short term.

3. Orion derived crew cabin for HLS. This has the advantage that the design is pretty matured and fully vetted by NASA.

4. Expendable Starship. Yes we know that Musk is against expending any Starship, but he needs to build those anyway. I'm talking about propellant depot variant of Starship. This one will be expendable, so all of that heavy, problematic and untested systems go away. No heat shield, no header tanks, flaps, propellants reserved for landing etc is gone. Propellant depot launched to LEO has ridiculous amount payload capability. This could be in range of 200mT or even more. The Starship itself is too heavy to go anywhere with 200mT of propellants, but if you put 200mT tug (using storable propellants) into the nosecone of Starship propellant depot, launch it into the suborbit trajectory and somehow extract the tug from the nosecone, you suddenly have a very substantial capability to move hardware around. Moreover, regardless of what you think of Starship program progress they already proved they are capable to bring Starship into suborbital trajectory.

Any thoughts?

[thespacecow]

So how can Artemis program realistically speed up Lunar landings?
As far as I know there are 2 basic options:

1. SpaceX will propose to keep doing the same. Fully reusable Starship, loads of refueling and "battle star" type of ridiculously big and heavy HLS. However, the reusable Starship still doesn't work, refueling also doesn't work and Starship HLS is nowhere to see.

And they're right, Starship is the fastest way to put crew on the Moon. Reuse/refueling is being developed, HLS hardware is already being built.

[Hadley Delta]

3. Orion derived crew cabin for HLS. This has the advantage that the design is pretty matured and fully vetted by NASA.

What is this exactly? Not just an Orion with legs, I assume.

[pochimax]

No legs... just the ascent stage.

[TheRadicalModerate]

3. Orion derived crew cabin for HLS. This has the advantage that the design is pretty matured and fully vetted by NASA.

Orion's crew module is designed to withstand the stresses of launch and, more important, EDL.  That makes it insanely heavy for the purposes of a crew module / ascent stage for an HLS.  There's no way that Blue or anybody else are going to have that kind of mass margin.

[pochimax]

8-10 Tm, I think
Supposedly can be co-manifested in a Block-1b or Block 2.

[321]

So how can Artemis program realistically speed up Lunar landings?
As far as I know there are 2 basic options:

1. SpaceX will propose to keep doing the same. Fully reusable Starship, loads of refueling and "battle star" type of ridiculously big and heavy HLS. However, the reusable Starship still doesn't work, refueling also doesn't work and Starship HLS is nowhere to see.

2. BO will propose to use several (many) BM MK1 derived tugs to push around BO HLS crew cabin. At least they have working launcher NG 7x2 and BM MK1 has a good chance to do demo lunar landing in 2026. Still they probably need to field NG 9x4 launcher for bigger payloads, they also need to tweak BM MK1 for a tug service and most importantly they need to develop HLS cabin where they have minimum experience.

We can argue who has better chance to succeed but I think that chances for any of these architectures are relatively slim, especially in short term.

IMO it would be worth to investigate two more elements which have potential to be useful in the short term.

3. Orion derived crew cabin for HLS. This has the advantage that the design is pretty matured and fully vetted by NASA.

4. Expendable Starship. Yes we know that Musk is against expending any Starship, but he needs to build those anyway. I'm talking about propellant depot variant of Starship. This one will be expendable, so all of that heavy, problematic and untested systems go away. No heat shield, no header tanks, flaps, propellants reserved for landing etc is gone. Propellant depot launched to LEO has ridiculous amount payload capability. This could be in range of 200mT or even more. The Starship itself is too heavy to go anywhere with 200mT of propellants, but if you put 200mT tug (using storable propellants) into the nosecone of Starship propellant depot, launch it into the suborbit trajectory and somehow extract the tug from the nosecone, you suddenly have a very substantial capability to move hardware around. Moreover, regardless of what you think of Starship program progress they already proved they are capable to bring Starship into suborbital trajectory.

Any thoughts?

Option1 - offshoot of ambitious Mars program therefore not optimised for purpose, inherently VERY HIGH RISK especially considering low priority for SX, target to complete is TBD. I would not bet on it for any race with China even with BO due to risk of unexpected delays.

Option 2 - BO is slow but considering low risk approach with limited new development scope and more clear and limited aim than option 1, and if we after pure speed of manned landing I think it is better than option 1.

Option 3 - see below.

Option 4 - new expendable US for SH with balloon common bulkhead tanks + Rvacs and on the top of it 400t HLS with again balloon common bulkhead tanks + 1 Rvac + Legs + Cargo pods for habitat (Orion CM? Dragon XL?) or cargo.
This HLS would need 5,5% mass fraction S so can go from LEO all the way to moon and back to LEO. HLS mass fraction & payload can be higher if TLE is done from higher earth orbit.
Pros:
  - probably fastest and cheapest option: SH is operational, new US and even HLS probably relatively low risk and fast developments using SX SS manufacturing technology, processes and equipment.
  - basic moon mission from LEO with one launch of SH/US/HLS, one launch of SH/US to top up HLS tanks and one launch of Crew Dragon.
  - reusable SH and HLS
  - HLS payload flexible, lower from LEO higher from GTO
  - all risky operations like docking and refueling done near LEO
Cons:
  - SX is not willing to spend resources and money on dedicated moon HLS program
  - Noone able to force SX to change the priority from Mars to Moon
  - expendable US

[John Kerslake]

Could they launch a BO transporter and a blue moon 2 lander on a space x SS?
and sen the lander straight to the moon in 1 launch?