The centerpiece of this mission will test the ability of Artemis III astronauts, who have yet to be named but may arrive in the coming months, to fly to one or both of the Orion lunar landers and then approach the lander.
NASA did something similar during the Apollo program with the Apollo 9 mission in March 1969. During this mission, the two Apollo 9 astronauts entered the Lunar Module and separated from the Apollo Command Module. They are performed a number of tasksIncluding flying 9.9 miles below and 74 miles behind, before the Apollo spacecraft returned and docked again.
How mature will Landers be?
However, it is unclear how rigorous similar tests will be during Artemis III. A new NASA release states: “Aware of the capabilities of Blue Origin and SpaceX, NASA is also determining the concept of operations for the mission. While some decisions are still undecided, astronauts could potentially access at least one landing test article.”
This means that the Artemis III astronauts will not even be able to enter the Starship and/or the Blue Moon, let alone fire thrusters or leave Orion.
This presents a major dilemma for Isaacman and the rest of NASA management. If they fly Artemis III in 2027, that stated goal will meet with one or two landers that have barely reached maturity. (NASA’s release calls them “pathfinders.”) If NASA doesn’t even consider crew entering the landers, it’s possible that neither vehicle will have any basic life support.
This falls short of a well-established maxim in the aerospace industry: try it as you fly. The longer NASA waits for Artemis III to fly, the better chance it will have of flying a vehicle with higher reliability, meaning closer to landing on the moon than being a basic prototype. It also raises the possibility that the Artemis spacesuit, developed by Axiom Space, will be available for testing.
But the longer NASA waits for Artemis III to fly, the more likely it will lose compatibility with Artemis IV in its lunar landing schedule. And that’s important, because Isaacman isn’t wrong when he says the race between NASA and China to get humans back to the moon will be settled in “months,” not “years.”
