![]() While the Artemis I test flight was originally slated for as early as 2016 when the program was announced, a series of delays from manufacturers, COVID-19 and a slew of hurricanes kept pushing the launch date, but with a working deep-space rocket and capsule, NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana says even a two-year wait before Artemis II will seem quick. That's the mission that looks to return humans, including the first woman, to the surface of the moon.Īfter that NASA wants to launch one mission a year with an eventual goal of building a base on the moon and sending the first humans to Mars by 2040. ![]() ![]() Looking forward to the next two years where we are able to take that and capitalize on it and, as we say, 'wash, rinse, repeat.'"įarther down the line, Artemis III is slated for no earlier than 2025, but that too could slip in the domino effect between launches. "So that'll be exciting to see if we can move that fast to continue the momentum that we got from this flight. "Hopefully, we will either meet or beat that two-year mark," he said. That regime could mean a launch pushed into 2025, but there could be room to speed up that timeline. "We don't want to have the crew just spinning their wheels if Artemis II is going to be a long way out."Īstronaut Randy Bresnik, who since 2018 has been heavily involved with Orion and Artemis decisions, said typically there would be two years from the announcement of the crew until launch, "ideally assigning the crew to it so that we can start building their spacesuits, getting them involved in training and getting them ready to go in that two-year mark." "Once we get this capsule back, we'll look it over and we'll be able to determine when Artemis II will actually be able to launch, and once we know that launch day, we'll figure out the right time to name the crew based on the training flow," she said. NASA astronaut Shannon Walker noted during live coverage of the landing that waiting to name a crew is not a bad thing if any sort of delay would push the target launch date. But our intent is if all is still go and everything looks good, then our plan is to name the crew in early 2023." "There's still some things that need to be learned as we get the spacecraft back to Florida. "We knew that we wanted to wait for this mission to go-make sure that it was a success," she said. Johnson Space Center Director Vanessa Wyche said part of that process will be assigning the crew for Artemis II, slated to bring four astronauts on an orbital flight without a lunar landing that will take about eight days, andmark humans' first deep-space mission since the end of the Apollo program 50 years ago. They included a successful launch atop the Space Launch System rocket, maneuvers during lunar orbit and ultimate return of Orion that featured a record-setting reentry for a human-rated spacecraft hitting 24,464 mph that generated temperatures near 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. ![]() Officials said more than 240 mission goals were accomplished. The uncrewed Orion capsule splashed down Sunday in the Pacific Ocean to complete its 25 1/2-day mission that launched from Kennedy Space Center on Nov. Are there things we can shorten there? Optimize? So that's all of our lessons learned path going forward." We're trying to roll in lessons learned from the processing of the Artemis I vehicle at Kennedy. "We obviously want to try to do it quicker," Free said, and pointed out the Orion team is "always looking to ways to do things quicker. "I think one thing we've always been concerned about is, what do we learn from and are there changes we have to make? I think we've learned a lot," said Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate during a post-landing press conference Sunday. While the latest announced timeline for that flight is no earlier than May 2024-only 18 months away-NASA officials after Sunday's successful landing kept referring a two-year turnaround between Artemis I and II, which would put its launch closer to the end of 2024. ![]()
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