A safety panel is urging NASA to reassess its plans for upcoming Artemis missions due to the agency packing too many objectives into each mission. The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) expressed concerns about the number of first-time objectives planned for Artemis 3, the first crewed lunar landing of the campaign.
“Each first milestone carries its own individual risk and, as these risks are compounded and aggregated, it only increases the overall risk posture for any individual flight mission,” said Bill Bray, a member of the panel. “It really begs the question, is it time for the agency to reassess the current mission objectives and its approach for Artemis 3 and beyond, with the goal to better balance the risks across all those flight tests?”
The concerns extend beyond Artemis 3, with later missions incorporating the lunar Gateway, Blue Moon crewed lunar lander, and a lunar rover. Each of these elements requires near-perfect program execution across complex sets of tests and milestones, leaving little room for failure.
NASA has recently announced changes to the heat shield material used in the Orion spacecraft to prevent erosion seen on Artemis 1 reentry. However, ASAP urges NASA to treat each launch as a test objective, like the Apollo program, with clear test objectives that can be balanced across all launch events.
The panel also discussed progress with SpaceX and Blue Origin, who are working towards developing crewed lunar landers and logistics systems for the Gateway. While both companies are making good progress, ASAP will continue to press NASA to reexamine its mission plans and consider reallocation of test objectives to achieve a more regular launch cadence with a more balanced risk exposure.
NASA is currently scheduled to send the first crewed mission to the Gateway in 2028, but delays due to single-key element failures could impact this timeline.
Source: https://spacenews.com/safety-panel-urges-nasa-to-reassess-artemis-mission-objectives-to-reduce-risk