NASA

Not too surprising, but the schedule slip is now official. Artemis II is NET 2025-09 and Artemis III is NET 2026-09.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/12123157

Key info:

The success of Ingenuity has also affected NASA’s plans for Mars Sample Return (MSR). The agency, in cooperation with the European Space Agency, announced in July 2022 that it will include two helicopters based on Ingenuity on a future lander that will take the samples collected by Perseverance and launch them into orbit. Those helicopters will be a backup if Perseverance itself is not able to deliver samples to the lander by transporting samples from a surface cache to the lander.

I'm super impressed with Ingenuity, and can't wait for more Martian helicopters! The Dragonfly mission to Titan also sounds awesome.

In a procurement notice posted Dec. 5, NASA announced it would allow companies the choice of using either firm fixed price or cost plus incentive fee contract structures for both the design and the production of the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle (USDV).

When NASA issued the original request for proposals (RFP) for the vehicle in September, the agency gave bidders a choice. They could propose to develop the vehicle using a cost-plus contract and then produce it under a fixed-price contract, a so-called “hybrid” approach. Alternatively, they could propose doing both development and production under fixed-price contracts.

The revised approach now adds an option to perform both the development and the production under cost-plus contracts. NASA, in both the procurement notice and a blog post, did not disclose the reason for the change.

NASA has also revised the deadline for submitting proposals. The agency originally requested proposals to be submitted by Nov. 17, with a single award expected in April 2024. NASA later extended the proposal deadline to Dec. 14. With this change, NASA has pushed back the deadline to Feb. 12, with an award expected in late May or early June.

NASA flew last November the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) as a secondary payload on the Atlas 5 launch of the JPSS-2 weather satellite. LOFTID deployed an inflatable heat shield six meters across that survived reentry and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.

Before the flight United Launch Alliance showed an interest in the technology as part of its Sensible Modular Autonomous Return Technology (SMART) concept for recovering the booster engine section of its Vulcan rocket, and helped support the LOFTID flight opportunity. ULA is now working with NASA through a Space Act Agreement on advancing the LOFTID technology.

The partnership with ULA would involve an aeroshell 10 meters across. “We’re currently working with them now designing that,” said Joe Del Corso, project manager for LOFTID at the Langley Research Center, during a Nov. 30 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s technology committee. That includes an upcoming preliminary design review of the larger aeroshell.

ULA is not the only company that has approached NASA about the LOFTID technology. “These folks are coming to the table going, ‘Hey, we have an application. We see that it’s been used. You’ve validated the technology,’” he said.

Among them is Outpost, a startup proposing commercial reentry systems that would use inflatable systems like those on LOFTID. “We’re not sure whether they’re going to go forward,” Del Corso said of Outpost. “They’re a smaller company that can’t necessarily afford NASA’s current way of doing business.”

NASA is also working with other companies that he declined to identify other than they are “bigger names” in the industry. Those companies, he said, are looking at even larger aeroshells 18 to 20 meters across for applications he did not disclose.

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.”