TRY, TRY, TRY AGAIN
Next attempt to launch Artemis set as rivalry with China fuels NASA
NASA is preparing to launch its mega moon rocket early Wednesday, marking the third attempt at launching a long-delayed vehicle that has withstood the whims of politicians, the technical hurdles of rocketry and, most recently, the gusts of Hurricane Nicole.
This uncrewed launch is the first of three missions designed to return astronauts to the moon. And while it lacks the Cold War-era tensions of NASA’s first moon program, there’s still an undercurrent of competition.
This time with China.
“I’ve said all along that we’re in a space race,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told “Meet the Press” in August. “We want to get to the South Pole of the moon where the resources are. … And we don’t want China suddenly getting there and saying, ‘This is our exclusive territory.’”
NASA is using the Space Launch System rocket to propel an Orion spacecraft on a 25-day mission around the moon. The two-hour launch window from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center opens Wednesday at 12:04 a.m. CST, with a backup launch available Nov. 19.
This flight test, dubbed Artemis I, will be the first time the Space Launch System and Orion fly together. The vehicles are more than a decade in the making and billions of dollars over budget.
Prior launch attempts on Aug. 29 and Sept. 3 were thwarted by technical issues. Then the rocket was tucked inside an assembly building before Hurricane Ian hit Florida on Sept. 28 as a Category 4 storm.
Hurricane Nicole came ashore Thursday, and the rocket remained on the launch pad as storm gusts up to 82 mph at the 60-foot level moved through the area. NASA said there was “very minor damage” and on Friday afternoon was preparing to launch on Wednesday.
The Artemis I mission is NASA’s first step toward a more inclusive and permanent era of lunar exploration. It will be followed by a crewed mission around the moon.
Then in 2025, the first woman and person of color are slated to land on the lunar surface. Subsequent missions would use the moon to test technologies that could take humanity to Mars.
“We’re going back to the moon, so how can you not be excited?” asked Debbie Korth, the Johnson Space Center’s deputy program manager for Orion. “This isn’t just about going and coming home. This is about a sustained presence. It’s also expanding the access.”
And, of course, it’s about remaining a leader in human spaceflight.
“We are in the lead, but we want to keep our pace of acceleration,” said Lori Garver, a former deputy administrator at NASA and author of “Escaping Gravity,” her firsthand account of a period of change at NASA.
“Great nations have to do great things and exploring with humans beyond the confines of Earth is a glorious thing to do,” she said.
Rocket politics
But this new era of exploration includes some parts and designs from space shuttles of the past, a reminder that it’s the product of 18 years of seesawing politics and four presidents.
Plans for this rocket and spacecraft surfaced in 2004 when President George W. Bush announced that NASA would retire the space shuttle, and he unveiled plans to return to the moon.
President Barack Obama canceled this moonshot in 2010. But Congress, worried about mass layoffs, rejected Obama’s cancellation and wrote an authorization act that saved the moon program’s spacecraft and heavy-lift rocket. “To the extent practicable,” the agency was told to use existing contracts and workforces.
As such, the Artemis I mission has four RS-25 engines in the rocket’s core stage that have previously flown on shuttle missions (they were upgraded).
These types of decisions helped save jobs and were supposed to keep development costs low.
But lower upfront costs don’t necessarily mean a cheaper program, said Casey Dreier, senior space policy adviser for the Planetary Society, a nonprofit that seeks to get more people engaged with space. It shifts the costs to future operations as NASA engineers spend time and money troubleshooting problems rather than inventing new technologies.
For example, the RS-25 engines require liquid hydrogen fuel. Hydrogen has a propensity for leaking, but the moon rocket had to use this fuel if it wanted to use the RS-25 engines.
Ultimately, tens of billions of dollars have been spent on the rocket and spacecraft. The vehicles are billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. This is partly due to political whiplash from Bush to Obama as Obama decided the vehicles should go to an asteroid or Mars; then President Donald Trump reverted back to the moon.
Each launch will cost $4.1 billion if the rocket and spacecraft are launched about once a year, according to NASA’s Office of Inspector General. This includes production and operations costs for the rocket, spacecraft and ground support systems, but it does not include money spent to develop these systems.
NASA said it hasn’t calculated a total mission cost for Artemis I, but it hopes future crewed missions will cost less than $2 billion.
For Garver, NASA’s deputy administrator when the 2010 Authorization Act was crafted, the delays and cost overruns have confirmed her fears — she didn’t believe NASA could deliver a rocket with the initially projected costs and timeline.
“I’m sad that I was correct,” Garver said.
She wanted future launch vehicles to be owned and operated by fast-paced, budget-conscious commercial companies. SpaceX has been flying astronauts to the International Space Station since 2020.
In fact, SpaceX was founded in 2002 and has successfully developed and launched the Falcon 9 rocket, Falcon Heavy rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft. It’s currently developing the Super Heavy rocket and Starship spacecraft.
“It gives you a sense of how long it takes to deploy (new vehicles),” said Phil Smith, a space industry analyst at analytics and engineering firm BryceTech. “During that time frame, we have not seen the launch of SLS or Orion with the crew.”
Rise of China
China has also used this time to grow its space prominence.
The country has landed a rover on the far side of the moon, placed another rover on Mars and housed taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) on a Chinese space station circling the Earth.
It has plans to send humans to the moon, but many hesitate to call it a race.
“We already got to the moon,” said Victoria Samson, the Washington office director for the Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on space sustainability.
Dreier said China has not indicated that it’s attempting to reach the moon before the next batch of American astronauts. And there isn’t a tactical military advantage from being on the moon. It’s too far away.
U.S. military reports have identified China as a threat in low-Earth orbit, where the country could target U.S. satellites or create unnecessary debris. But China’s civil space program doesn’t appear to be aggressive, Dreier said.
Still, experts recognize that the country — or coalition of countries — that gets to the moon next will create the rules for deep space exploration.
“What we’re competing over really is who gets to establish the norms of behavior,” said Todd Harrison, managing director of Metrea Strategic Insights, a national security strategy and policy analysis group. “The de facto practices for how things will work in deep space.”
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, for instance, prohibits countries from owning territory on the moon or any other celestial body. But it’s vague about whether countries can own resources collected from the moon. NASA and its allies that have signed the Artemis Accords would like countries and companies to be able to own rocks, water and other resources taken from the moon. It would be like keeping a fish caught in international waters.
China might want a different resource policy, Harrison said.
And as alluded to by NASA Administrator Nelson, China’s moon activities would become a concern if the country gets to the South Pole and prevents other nations from mining the frozen water that’s believed to be in the moon’s shadowy craters. Water can be split into hydrogen and oxygen and then turned into liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for rocket propellant. It could be cheaper to make propellant required for return trips home than to carry it to the moon from Earth.
But the moon is large, Dreier said, and there should be enough space for both countries at the South Pole.
“The symbolism, I think, is what’s at stake rather than any direct conflict at the moon,” he said.
Liftoff
But first, NASA must get its moon rocket off the ground. And that effort has been stymied in recent months.
The first launch attempt on Aug. 29 was scrubbed because NASA was uncertain that one of its rocket engines was at the proper temperature to handle super-cold propellant. Liquid oxygen is kept at minus 297 degrees Fahrenheit and liquid hydrogen is kept at minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit. Hydrogen leaks were also an issue.
The Sept. 3 launch attempt was scrubbed due to a liquid hydrogen leak.
When Artemis I does finally launch, the Space Launch System will become the world’s most powerful rocket. And the Orion spacecraft’s 40,000-mile voyage beyond the moon will be the farthest any spacecraft built for humans has flown.