NASA is making substantial changes to accelerate the Artemis program

“This is just not the right way forward,” Isaacman said.

A senior NASA official told Ars that the space agency experienced hydrogen and helium leaks during pre-launch preparations for Artemis I and Artemis II, and those problems led to months of launch delays.

“As I recall, the time between Apollo 7 and 8 was nine weeks,” the official said. “Releasing SLS every three and a half years or so is not a recipe for success. Surely making each of them a work of art with some major configuration change is also not helpful in this process, and we can clearly see the results of that, right?”

The goal is therefore to unify the SLS rocket in a single configuration to make the rocket as reliable as possible and launch as often as every 10 months. NASA will fly the SLS vehicle until commercial alternatives to sending crews to the Moon become available, perhaps via Artemis V as directed by Congress, and maybe even a little longer.

Is everyone on board?

A NASA official said all of the agency’s key contractors support the change, and senior congressional leaders have been briefed on the proposed changes.

Apparently the biggest opposition to these proposals would come from Boeing, which is the prime contractor for the Upper Exploration Stage, a contract worth billions of dollars to develop a more powerful rocket that would launch for the first time later this decade. However, in a NASA press release, Boeing seemed to offer at least some support for the revised plans.

“Boeing is a proud partner of the Artemis mission, and our team is honored to contribute to NASA’s vision for American leadership in space,” said Steve Parker, president and CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, in a press release. “The SLS core stage remains the most powerful rocket stage in the world and the only one that can carry U.S. astronauts directly to the Moon and beyond in a single launch. As NASA establishes an accelerated launch schedule, our workforce and supply chain are prepared to meet increased production needs.”

Solid reasons for changing Artemis III

With the previous Artemis template, NASA skipped the steps taken by Apollo 7, 9 and 10. In the minds of many in the industry, this jump from Artemis II – a crewed lunar flyby that only tested the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft – to Artemis III and a full lunar landing was huge and risky.