As Boeing nears completing final assembly of NASA’s second Space Launch System (SLS) core stage at the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in New Orleans, the space agency’s prime contractor for SLS stages is continuing production of hardware for the next two units. The core stage for Artemis II is the last one that will be completed at MAF, with future builds now planned to undergo final construction at their launch site, the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.

The first core stage to be completed at KSC will be the unit for Artemis III; Boeing has already transported the engine section to Florida to complete its outfitting and is hoping to have its new facilities in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) ready by the end of 2024 — the same time as it intends the stage hardware for that launch to be ready for final assembly. Structures for the Artemis IV core stage are also in production, with delivery of the engine section structure to Florida expected in the first part of next year.

Artemis III core stage will debut new final assembly methods

The core stage for Artemis II is in its final integrated testing ahead of completion in the next several weeks, and while that is the focus of Boeing’s production work at MAF, NASA is still pressing towards a scheduled launch of the next mission – Artemis III – only a year after the target date for Artemis II at the end of 2024. Work on the third core stage is aiming towards completion in 2025, with the final phase of production moving from MAF in New Orleans to facilities at KSC.

Then, a small drogue parachute was supposed to open to stabilize the 32-inch-wide (81-centimeter) sample return craft. About five minutes later, a larger main chute would open to slow the capsule for a gentle landing while protecting the precious asteroid material sealed inside.

At least, that was the plan. While OSIRIS-REx safely returned its asteroid sample to Earth, there were moments of high drama.

The capsule was supposed to send an automated signal to deploy the drogue chute at 100,000 feet, beginning a roughly five-minute timer before a second signal would cut a retention cord for the drogue, allowing the larger parachute to unfurl and complete the landing sequence. Instead, at 100,000 feet, the signal triggered the system to cut the drogue free while it was still packed inside the capsule, according to NASA.

At 9,000 feet, the other signal sent the command to actually release the drogue chute. But with its retention cord already cut, the drogue immediately released from the capsule, and the main parachute opened as expected.

"The first signal was supposed to fire the mortar and release the drogue," Lauretta said. "The second signal was supposed to cut the cable to release the main ... It looks like the first signal cut the (cable), and then the second signal fired the mortar, so it went backwards. But it worked. We had lots of margin on that main chute. It landed safely—a beautiful pinpoint landing in the Utah desert.”

An investigation by engineers from NASA and Lockheed Martin, which built the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and sample return vehicle, found that build plans for the mission weren't specific enough in instructing technicians who assembled the return capsule.

"In the design plans for the system, the word 'main' was used inconsistently between the device that sends the electric signals, and the device that receives the signals," NASA said in a written statement. "On the signal side, 'main' meant the main parachute. In contrast, on the receiver side 'main' was used as a reference to a pyrotechnic that fires to release the parachute canister cover and deploy the drogue.

"Engineers connected the two mains, causing the parachute deployment actions to occur out of order," NASA said.

A new report from the Government Accountability Office suggests NASA's Artemis III mission, which aims to return humans to the Moon's surface for the first time in more than 50 years, could be delayed from late 2025 until 2027.

The readiness of SpaceX's human-rated lander and new commercial spacesuits developed by Axiom Space are driving the schedule for Artemis III. Both contractors have a lot of work to do before the Artemis III landing, and the government watchdog's report said delays with SpaceX's Starship program and design challenges with Axiom's spacesuits threaten NASA's schedule.

"NASA and its contractors have made progress, including completing several important milestones, but they still face multiple challenges with development of the human landing system and the space suits," the GAO said in a report published Thursday. "As a result, GAO found that the Artemis III crewed lunar landing is unlikely to occur in 2025."

Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day recently gave a talk at the American Astronautical Society about the Artemis program and communication:

I Was SCARED To Say This To NASA... (But I said it anyway) - Smarter Every Day 293

In his talk, he points out some of the legitimate shortcomings in the Artemis architecture, but I'm not sure if the parallels he draws to the Apollo program necessarily hold up, given the vastly different political impetus for the two programs. I think his main points regarding the importance of voicing negative feedback are valid, though.

What are people's thoughts?

WASHINGTON — Angola signed the U.S.-led Artemis Accords outlining best practices for space exploration Nov. 30, becoming the third African nation to do so.

The signing took place during the visit of Angola’s president, João Lourenço, to the White House to meet with President Joe Biden. The signing was mentioned briefly in White House statements about the meeting.

Angola is the third African nation to sign the accords, after Rwanda and Nigeria, which joined in December 2022 during the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. Thirty-three countries have now signed the accords, 10 of which have done so this year.

“Angola is already using space-based capabilities to map United Nations sustainable development goals across the country, helping to tackle ambitious objectives such as eliminating poverty and hunger,” Mike Gold, chief growth officer at Redwire and a former NASA official who helped develop the Accords, told SpaceNews. “By signing the Artemis Accords, Angola is taking its space ambitions beyond Earth orbit, while supporting norms of behavior that will lead to a peaceful and prosperous future in space for all of humanity to enjoy.”

An internal email sent Nov. 29 informed NASA researchers that they would be able to apply to the China National Space Administration (CNSA) for access to portions of samples collected by China’s Chang’e-5 mission.

“NASA has certified its intent to Congress to allow NASA-funded researchers to apply to the China National Space Administration for access to lunar samples returned to Earth on the Chang’e-5 mission and made available recently to the international scientific community for research purposes,” the email read.

The move opens the rare possibility of cooperation between China and NASA-funded entities and researchers. It also comes despite NASA Administrator Bill Nelson’s strong rhetoric towards China and his stated support for maintaining ongoing restrictions on collaboration.

WASHINGTON — Citing budget uncertainty, NASA is pushing back the launch of the Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s moon Titan by a year and postponing a key milestone in its development.

In a presentation at a Nov. 28 meeting of NASA’s Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG), Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science division, said agency leadership decided to postpone formal confirmation of the mission earlier this month, a milestone where the agency sets an official cost and schedule for the mission.

The delay in confirmation by NASA’s Agency Program Management Council (APMC), she said, is based on uncertainty about how much money will be available for the mission and other parts of NASA’s planetary science portfolio given broader budget pressures on the agency. “Because of these incredibly large uncertainties in FY ’24 and FY ’25 funding and budgets, the decision was made at that APMC to postpone the official confirmation,” she said.

Instead, the APMC will reconvene after the release of the agency’s fiscal year 2025 budget proposal in early 2024. “We anticipate taking Dragonfly back to APMC in the spring” for a decision on confirmation, she said. In the meantime, though, NASA will allow the mission to proceed with some elements of final mission design and fabrication that usually do not start until after the confirmation review.

I hope it isn't delayed too much. I want to see a nuclear-powered drone on Titan, and a decade is already a long wait!

The MSR funding saga continues:

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress are asking NASA not to slow down work on the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program now while also lobbying fellow members to provide more money for the effort in 2024.

In a Nov. 21 letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, six members of California’s congressional delegation expressed their “strongest opposition” to a NASA directive earlier this month to slow down work on MSR because of uncertainty about how much funding will be available to the program in fiscal year 2024.

The letter was signed by Sens. Alex Padilla (D) and Laphonza Butler (D) and Reps. Adam Schiff (D), Judy Chu (D), Mike Garcia (R) and Young Kim (R). The four House members all represent districts in Southern California, home of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is leading the overall MSR effort.

The first flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket seems to have a payload. Instead of launching a sports car, as SpaceX did with its first Falcon Heavy rocket, Jeff Bezos's space company will likely launch a pair of Mars probes for NASA.

NASA is aware of the risk of launching a real science mission on the first flight of a new rocket. But this mission, known by the acronym ESCAPADE, is relatively low cost. The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers mission has a budget of approximately $79 million, significantly less than any mission NASA has sent to Mars in recent history.

This mission will use two spacecraft to measure plasma and magnetic fields around the red planet. With simultaneous observations from two locations around Mars, scientists hope to learn more about the processes that strip away atoms from the magnetosphere and upper atmosphere, which drive Martian climate change.

Highlights:

The long-awaited crewed launch of Starliner has gained increased positivity that its latest launch date will remain on target, following numerous slips since the maiden uncrewed flight to the International Space Station (ISS).

While NASA postponed the NET launch date for the Starliner crew flight test (CFT) is now set for April 14, 2024 due to scheduling reasons, NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) – a traditionally conservative body by nature – cited hope that Boeing’s latest issues with the spacecraft are coming to a close for a launch in April. This was followed by the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) citing the specific launch date target.

Starliner completed two uncrewed flight tests, with the first being the infamous mission in December 2019, which revealed numerous software problems and failed to reach the International Space Station (ISS).

The second was Orbital Flight Test-2, which docked to the Station on May 21, 2022, following a launch two days prior from Kennedy.

On the software side, qualification testing of the CFT flight software is completed. Hardware and software integration testing is still ongoing at Boeing.

On the pure hardware side, Starliner´s crew and service module are already mated with normal preflight processing coming up.

The ULA Atlas V rocket is already at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and the integration process with the spacecraft should begin soon after a successful drop test.

Hopefully Boeing can finally get their act together... only a few years behind schedule!

In the months after Artemis 1, which splashed down last December after three and a half weeks in cislunar space, NASA managers said that they noted more erosion of the material on the heat shield than expected during reentry. They emphasized at the time that the erosion did not jeopardize the spacecraft because the heat shield still had a “significant amount of margin” of the ablative material, known as Avcoat.

NASA and its contractors are continuing to process the various elements of the Artemis 2 mission, including Orion, to keep the mission on track for a launch in late 2024. “We’re still pressing forward with the hardware because we don’t see a reason to stop right now,” Free said. “If we find a reason to stop, we will stop.”

“There is continued processing of the vehicle for Artemis 2, but we’re just doing that to try to manage schedule,” Hawkins said. “If we do need to go back, if we do need to undo things up to and including replacing heat shield components, we are entirely open to that.”

Neither Free nor Hawkins said what impact there would be on the schedule for Artemis 2 if the Orion heat shield needs to be modified or replaced. Hawkins said that other elements of the mission, including the Space Launch System rocket and ground systems, were on track with SLS in particular having “great margin” on its schedule.

T-9 hours until the second launch of Starship! Future iterations of Starship will support NASA's Artemis program and serve as a crewed lunar lander for Artemis III.

Launch thread has been posted over on c/SpaceX: https://sh.itjust.works/post/9381398

I will be posting updates there. Come and join us in that thread!

T-90 minutes until the launch of CRS SpX-29!

Launch thread for the mission has been posted over on c/SpaceX: https://sh.itjust.works/post/8853397

I will be posting updates there. Come and join us in that thread!

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-administrator-remembers-apollo-astronaut-thomas-k-mattingly-ii/

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-administrator-honors-life-of-apollo-astronaut-frank-borman/

It’s really sad to see this generation of astronauts slip away.

I feel conflicted on deorbiting the ISS at the end of its operational life. It is showing its age, and newer space stations will be no doubt be better, but it seems a shame to lose such an iconic piece of history.

I wonder if it would be possible to preserve it in space as a museum for future generations to visit. Thoughts?