NASA announces major overhaul of Artemis moon program amid safety concerns, delays: "We've got to get back to basics"

[jemhouston]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-artem ... -overhaul/


Short version, more flights before landing on the Moon. NASA is adding the equivalent of Apollo 9 & 10 to test the lander in low Earth orbit and maybe Lunar orbit. NASA want to increase the flight rate at least once a year from every three years. They also want to beef up in house talent.

I haven't heard if the landers are on schedule or not.

I'm still betting on Falcon Heavy to get there first. Starship is the wild card.

[kdahm]

The Ars Technica article is better coverage: https://arstechnica.com/staff/2026/02/n ... nts-page=1

I haven't heard if the landers are on schedule or not.

I'm still betting on Falcon Heavy to get there first. Starship is the wild card.

Landers are behind schedule. But not that much, because it mostly depends on Starship actually getting working. Development there is a bit slower. The Blue lander is in development hell, with no idea of what's happening. Based on New Glenn development times, it'll be awhile.

I'd take that bet on Falcon Heavy. FH doesn't have the delta-v to get a 4 person capsule plus lander into trans-lunar orbit. If you're looking at Earth orbit transfer, then F9 can get the astronauts up and to a Starship or other transfer vehicle.

[jemhouston]

Do Earth Orbit Rendezvous, FH for crew / lander and FH 2 for booster to Lunar orbit.


One thing that worries me about Starship, if you look at recent lunar lander some have tipped over due to how tall they are.

[Micael]

On Friday afternoon, a new contract was published that confirms NASA's selection of @ulalaunch Vulcan upper stage, the Centaur V, as the new upper stage of the Space Launch System rocket beginning with the Artemis IV mission.

[brovane]

The Ars Technica article is better coverage: https://arstechnica.com/staff/2026/02/n ... nts-page=1

I haven't heard if the landers are on schedule or not.

I'm still betting on Falcon Heavy to get there first. Starship is the wild card.

Landers are behind schedule. But not that much, because it mostly depends on Starship actually getting working. Development there is a bit slower. The Blue lander is in development hell, with no idea of what's happening. Based on New Glenn development times, it'll be awhile.

I'd take that bet on Falcon Heavy. FH doesn't have the delta-v to get a 4 person capsule plus lander into trans-lunar orbit. If you're looking at Earth orbit transfer, then F9 can get the astronauts up and to a Starship or other transfer vehicle.

NASA/Congress waited way to long to get around to awarding/funding lunar lander contracts. The lander contract wasn't awarded until April 2021 and both SpaceX and Blue Origin landers have way more capability than the original Apollo LM's. Which means they both have a much more difficult development cycle. You add in the fact that Orion+Service Module cannot get in and out of Low Lunar Orbit like the Apollo CSM. That required a selection of a NRHO (Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit) which means more Delta-V/Performance required for both Artemis HLS landers.

The scrapping of EUS while painful (A lot of money already given to Boeing) let alone the $2B+ spent on ML-2. Yeah that is right, the US govt was spending $2B+ on just the Mobile Tower to support EUS.

The selection of Centaur-V is a solid choice to replace the EUS. While it doesn't have the performance of the planned EUS it still has more performance than the ICPS it is replacing. The Centaur V is already in production for the Vulcan rocket and hopefully should be able to be fast tracked for SLS.

[brovane]

NASA Artemis 2 launch was successful today.

FB_IMG_1775090091250.jpg

[Sukhoiman]

Was excellent to watch it all happen live. Outstanding.

God speed to the crew for a fully successful mission.

[jemhouston]

Was excellent to watch it all happen live. Outstanding.

God speed to the crew for a fully successful mission.

Is it too to ask for Him to get the flight his undivided attention?

[kdahm]

Was excellent to watch it all happen live. Outstanding.

God speed to the crew for a fully successful mission.

Is it too to ask for Him to get the flight his undivided attention?

It's not too late until the capsule is back on the ground.

[MikeKozlowski]

Was excellent to watch it all happen live. Outstanding.

God speed to the crew for a fully successful mission.

I felt like a kid again. Only thing that bothered me was the NASA video quality. I mean, I realize money was tight, but they could have done better than Dollar Store security cams.

Mike

[jemhouston]

The NASA Admin posted this picture




Kid sums up the event.

https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/20394 ... l-n2426716

[gtg947h]

Was excellent to watch it all happen live. Outstanding.

God speed to the crew for a fully successful mission.

I felt like a kid again. Only thing that bothered me was the NASA video quality. I mean, I realize money was tight, but they could have done better than Dollar Store security cams.

I don't know how many people were watching the stream but I wonder if there was some slowdown from high demand...

But otherwise, for as much publicity and attention as this is getting, the video quality on the broadcast was pretty poor. Especially to those of us used to and spoiled by SpaceX streams where you get multiple high-res camera angles and some interesting telemetry feeds during reentry, let alone throughout the entire launch, poor camera tracking plus a lack of on-vehicle camera (nevermind stuttering CGI models!) this was a let-down.

[gral]

I don't know how many people were watching the stream but I wonder if there was some slowdown from high demand...

There was a substantial lag(20-30 seconds) in the official NASA stream.

[gtg947h]

Kid sums up the event.

Damn right kid...

[Micael]

I don't know how many people were watching the stream but I wonder if there was some slowdown from high demand...

There was a substantial lag(20-30 seconds) in the official NASA stream.

Yeah, I watched the unofficial NASASpaceFlight channel and it appeared that their stream was ahead of the official one.

Great to see it get off the ground and that things are going well so far.

[brovane]

Was excellent to watch it all happen live. Outstanding.

God speed to the crew for a fully successful mission.

I felt like a kid again. Only thing that bothered me was the NASA video quality. I mean, I realize money was tight, but they could have done better than Dollar Store security cams.

I don't know how many people were watching the stream but I wonder if there was some slowdown from high demand...

But otherwise, for as much publicity and attention as this is getting, the video quality on the broadcast was pretty poor. Especially to those of us used to and spoiled by SpaceX streams where you get multiple high-res camera angles and some interesting telemetry feeds during reentry, let alone throughout the entire launch, poor camera tracking plus a lack of on-vehicle camera (nevermind stuttering CGI models!) this was a let-down.

The NASA feed was very poor. Especially the decision to switch cameras right before SRB separation to people watching the launch. Several of the camera shots during launch had information that we really didn't need to know and the information we wanted like speed, altitude etc. was absent. SpaceX does live shots during launch from the vehicle itself but they also use Starlink. The camera quality inside the capsule seems to be fairly poor. Some of this could be bandwidth but still the cameras seem to be a problem. There has been some mentions on Reddit that during the layoffs when Trump came into office that a lot of the NASA PAO team either was let go or long time NASA employees decided to head to the exit. Not sure how much truth there is to this but overall people like Everyday Astronaut had better camera work for the launch. There is plenty of opportunity for improvement before the next launch.

[jemhouston]

X account with launch from airplane https://twitter.com/i/status/2039480014928835044

[Micael]

Most amusing thing so far is the crew calling for help with IT issues on their tablets, including seeing two instances of Outlook and neither is working. I sympathize with their plight. Houston was able to take over the device remotely though and troubleshoot.

[Sukhoiman]

outlook is notoriously buggy and badly coded, I think I had pretty much identical issue with it yesterday ironically (two instances, as update induced lag of opening 1st instance made me think i didnt open one yet... and then white screen app doom loop as it sees non-completion of log-in from its end, some coder didnt test this basic thing, ridiculous).

Its best to use something simple and proprietary....can be quickly done in any programming language. But then I guess interfacing with other suites installed everywhere in NASA becomes a hassle.

[Nightwatch2]

outlook is notoriously buggy and badly coded, I think I had pretty much identical issue with it yesterday ironically (two instances, as update induced lag of opening 1st instance made me think i didnt open one yet... and then white screen app doom loop as it sees non-completion of log-in from its end, some coder didnt test this basic thing, ridiculous).

Its best to use something simple and proprietary....can be quickly done in any programming language. But then I guess interfacing with other suites installed everywhere in NASA becomes a hassle.

The Office Suite, including Outlook, has become something of the de facto standard across industry and government.

Because of that I’ve used it all for decades simply to be consistent across work and home. It’s become ingrained into my DNA. Bugs and all.

I noticed mine updated itself yesterday. I imagine the challenges of interplanetary updates will become legendary

Short war story. The city IT department pushed out a mandatory update that as soon as one logged in took over the computer for about a half hour. So as we started off a City Council mtg and opened up the laptops for all of the staff presentations…..

My comment that there would be some significant staff changes if that ever happened again were taken to heart (not that I actually had that authority but the message was received)