INA - SOURCES
NASA remains on track for next year's Artemis III mission, a key test of orbital docking and lunar landers needed for future crewed moon landings, despite an explosion involving an unmanned Blue Origin rocket during a launchpad test in May, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said on Monday.
The Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the moon in 2028, combines NASA-developed spacecraft with systems provided by private industry. NASA's Space Launch System rocket will launch a crew aboard Orion, a deep-space capsule built by Lockheed Martin (LMT.N), opens new tab, while Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin are developing landers designed to ferry astronauts between lunar orbit and the moon's surface.
Ahead of future lunar landings, Artemis III will serve as a rehearsal in low Earth orbit. Four astronauts will fly aboard Orion and test rendezvous and docking operations with versions of SpaceX's Starship Human Landing System and Blue Origin's Blue Moon.
"We are still very much planning for that," Isaacman told Reuters at the Farnborough Airshow, referring to the 2027 timeline. "The parts that are in NASA's greatest control, which would be all things SLS and Orion related, are doing incredibly well."
NASA is also closely watching SpaceX's next Starship test flight, due this week, including the performance of its Raptor engines and heat shield, both critical to making the rocket fully reusable.
Isaacman said SpaceX's record-setting $75 billion initial public offering in June could benefit NASA by giving one of its most important contractors additional resources.