NASA Associate Administrator, Other Key Officials Resign

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On Thursday Dec 5, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) head Bill Nelson announced the Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972, has been delayed.

The agency is now targeting April 2026 for Artemis II, a mission that will take astronauts around the moon and back, and mid-2027 for Artemis III, a lunar landing mission. NASA explained that the delays will provide additional time to address the Orion spacecraft's environmental control and life support systems.

“The Artemis campaign is the most daring, technically challenging, collaborative, international endeavor humanity has ever set out to do,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a press release. “We have made significant progress on the Artemis campaign over the past four years, and I’m proud of the work our teams have done to prepare us for this next step forward in exploration as we look to learn more about Orion’s life support systems to sustain crew operations during Artemis II. We need to get this next test flight right. That’s how the Artemis campaign succeeds.”

Introduced in 2017, Artemis is part of NASA’s plan to lay the groundwork for future human missions to Mars and reestablish a human presence on the moon. According to Reuters, the U.S. is expected to invest about $93 billion in the program through 2025.

"This is not a time for business as usual."

The next few years are likely to be pivotal ones for NASA, according to a hard-hitting report by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The report, which was released last month, is called "NASA at a Crossroads: Maintaining Workforce, Infrastructure and Technology Preeminence in the Coming Decades." And that title was chosen advisedly.

"The bottom line of all this, I think, would be to say that, for NASA, this is not a time for business as usual," said Norm Augustine, committee chair and former Lockheed Martin CEO, during a Sept. 10 webinar that detailed the report's findings. 

"The concerns that it faces are ones that have built up over decades," Augustine said. "NASA truly is, in our view, at a crossroads, and that's why we put that word in the title." 

The report identifies out-of-date infrastructure, pressures to prioritize short-term objectives, budget mismatches, inefficient management practices and nonstrategic reliance on commercial partners as the core issues.  

Related: NASA's Mars sample return plan is getting a major overhaul: 'The bottom line is, $11 billion is too expensive'

The report also argues that NASA should rebalance its priorities and increase investments in its facilities, expert workforce and the development of cutting-edge technology, "even if it means forestalling initiation of new missions."

Indeed, the environment in which NASA functions today is complicated by several factors, including:

• Rapid advancements in technology 
• The need to compete for talent with the commercial space sector, other space agencies and other high-tech sectors 
• A declining federal discretionary budget and a flat agency budget (in terms of purchasing power) 
• Lack of timely congressional authorization acts 
• Shortfalls in the nation's education system, from pre-K through high school 
• Increasing competition in space from China 

The bottom line of a new U.S. National Academies report on NASA's overall health is that "this is not a time for business as usual," said Norm Augustine, committee chair during a Sept. 10 webinar that detailed the report's findings.  (Image credit: National Academies)

Continued success at NASA is at risk, the report stresses, due to budget and program mismatch, short-term focus and aging infrastructure. 

Space.com asked several space policy experts about their reactions to the report's conclusions.

The story of NASA's infrastructure woes is all too familiar, said Marcia Smith, editor of the respected website SpacePolicyOnline.com.

"What I did find new was the report telling NASA that the problem is so acute that NASA needs to fix it even if that means forgoing new missions," Smith said. "NASA is well aware of its aging infrastructure. It all comes down to money."

The space agency's ongoing quest for funding is a situation that has only gotten worse, said Smith.

Last year, Congress abruptly started cutting NASA's budget — 2% less in fiscal year 2024 than in fiscal year 2023 (not accounting for the effects of inflation) — after years of growth, Smith pointed out. 

"The agency is looking at canceling missions, never mind starting new ones. I don't know what they can do about infrastructure in this budget climate," Smith added.

The budget caps set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act last year are only for fiscal year 2024 and fiscal year 2025. Which party wins the House, Senate, and White House in November, Smith observed, will have a major effect on whether those caps are lifted after that and NASA gets more breathing room. 

"If so, it will be interesting to see if NASA heeds Augustine's advice and fixes infrastructure instead of starting more missions. It does seem to be an either-or choice," Smith said.

The report is well-written and an accurate description of the many issues facing NASA as an institution, said Scott Pace, professor of the Practice of International Affairs and Director of the Space Policy Institute at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Pace served as the executive secretary of the National Space Council from 2017 to 2020.

Pace added, however, that the report "accepts as given that the agency as it has existed should continue, albeit with some repairs." The report does not ask, he said, what kind of NASA is needed for the 21st century? 

"It takes an 'institution-driven' perspective, rather than being 'mission-driven' in asking what the United States wants NASA to be," Pace told Space.com.

"In light of changing private sector capabilities, what internal capabilities does NASA require to perform its missions? The report suggests one set of answers, but it is unclear that the Administration or Congress will agree," said Pace.

All in all, the report recommends tough but necessary medicine, suggested John Logsdon, professor emeritus at the Space Policy Institute.

"What strikes me is the absence in the report of a recommendation to increase NASA's funding in order to avoid 'trying to do too much with too little.' That was a recommendation of the two previous Augustine-led NASA committees," said Logsdon.

This iteration of a NASA review, Logsdon said, accepts that the agency's budget is unlikely to increase significantly in coming years. 

"That implies hard choices with respect to which prospective missions not to do. On top of that, the committee recommends a reprioritization between carrying out spaceflight missions and tending to institutional health. This is antithetical to NASA's culture, which values mission success," Logsdon concluded.

As for NASA's comeback on the report, that's still to come. 

The report was requested by Congress in the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act of 2022.  

The study was undertaken by the Academies Committee on NASA Mission Critical Workforce, Infrastructure, and Technology and sponsored by NASA.

"The Congressional direction gave the agency 180 days to respond with a plan, said Colleen Hartman, senior managing director of aeronautics, astronomy, physics, and space science for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. 

"I also always request an agency response to a report, which will come separately to us," Hartman told Space.com.

RELATED STORIES:

— NASA gets $25.4 billion in White House's 2025 budget request

— NASA's Mars Sample Return in jeopardy after US Senate questions budget

— US must beat China back to the moon, Congress tells NASA 

The agency extended its deadline for a deorbit vehicle that will eventually steer the ISS into Earth's atmosphere.

The space station turned 25 years old on Wednesday (Dec. 6), and NASA is preparing for the pioneering outpost's end.

The agency just celebrated the milestone mission that docked the first two International Space Station (ISS) modules on Dec. 6, 1998. In the runup to that event, NASA updated its private proposal request to help deorbit the station when it retires in 2030 or so. And early stage funding is underway for several commercial replacements that would be run by private companies, with NASA as a customer. The agency wants all these vehicles ready by the time the ISS' work is done.

Commercial activity will allow more astronauts, from more countries, to "conduct science and technology development," ISS Expedition 70 commander Andreas Mogensen said during a livestreamed event on Wednesday marking the 25th anniversary.

"I think that's incredibly exciting, to see how many countries [will fly], and hopefully also in the future private companies are interested in utilizing a laboratory in low Earth orbit," said Mogensen, who is with the European Space Agency.

The International Space Station is 356 feet (109 meters) end-to-end with a mass of 925,335 pounds (419,725 kilograms) without visiting vehicles. The solar panels alone cover one acre. There is 13,696 cubic feet of habitable volume for crew members, not including visiting vehicles. The space station has seven sleeping quarters, with the ability to add more during crew handover periods, two bathrooms, a gym, and the cupola — a 360-degree-view bay window of the Earth. You can learn more in the reference guide here. 

The space station orbits Earth at an altitude of approximately 250 miles (402 kilometers), with its orbital path taking it over 90 percent of the Earth's population. Thanks to the size of its solar panels, it can be seen with the naked eye at dusk or dawn when flying over a local area. You can track the space station's path near you at spotthestation.nasa.gov. 

The International Space Station is exactly that — international. It is a partnership of five space agencies from 15 countries who contributed different parts to make up the ISS, which are still owned by the respective partner, and we all help to continuously operate the station 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. The space station is composed of parts provided by the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, and the countries comprising the European Space Agency. 

United Launch Alliance (ULA)—the Boeing/Lockheed joint-venture that provides space launch services to the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA, and other major players in the space industry—expects the first flight of its Vulcan Centaur rocket to take place soon.

The Vulcan Centaur will replace ULA’s Atlas-5 launch vehicle—a twenty-year old Lockheed Martin design and the oldest active American rocket.

Each Atlas-5 comprises two main stages, the first of which is powered by a Russian RD-180 engine. The RD-180 is being phased out on account of the national security implications inherent its being reliant on foreign parts—which became a concern subsequent the U.S.’s and Russia’s disagreement over Ukrainian sovereignty. 

Provided preparations proceed apace, the partially reusable Vulcan Centaur’s inaugural mission will see it depart from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station carrying Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander—an autonomous, robotic vehicle capable of delivering payloads of up to 265-kilograms to the lunar surface with a target accuracy of one-hundred meters. 

The Vulcan Centaur was to have launched in 2020, but the program has been delayed by the rocky development of Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine (pictured)—which burns methane and is more powerful than the main engines that powered the space shuttle. ULA’s optimism notwithstanding, space industry insiders believe it’s unlikely that Kent, Washington-based Blue Origin will deliver the new engines before 2023.

Gary L. Wentz Jr., ULA’s vice president of government and commercial programs, asserts ULA has in its possession a number of the Russian-made RD-180 sufficient to complete the Atlas-5’s planned missions. Mister Wentz states Atlas 5 flights will wind-down as Vulcan Centaur launches spool-up. At present, Atlas-5 operations are slated to continue into 2024.

Space Force Col. Erin Gulden shares Mr. Wentz’s outlook, stating of the transition from the Atlas 5 to the Vulcan Centaur, “from the Space Force’s perspective, we don’t see any issues or concerns at this point with a gap in capability or ability to launch.”  

The Space Force’s first launch on a Vulcan Centaur is planned for late 2023.

This article is reprinted from "Propwash"

To learn more about United Launch Alliance go to: 

 https://www.ulalaunch.com/rockets/vulcan-centaur