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Mike Pence, the Vice President of the United States, is ready to announce the chart of 18 astronauts that will be available for NASA’s New Moon missions.
The announcement, which was first reported by Ars Technica, will be held in Florida as part of an update on POTArtemis program.
Follow an audit report by the space agency’s office of the inspector general (OIG), which warned that NASA’s plans to land the first woman and next man on the moon by 2024 are “unlikely” to be achieved.
There is concern that NASA’s Lunar Gateway will be delayed
The 18 astronauts to be named today will not all go to the moon, but will be available for crew assignments when the schedule is set.
According to Ars Technica, the first moon landing mission, Artemis III, can carry up to four astronauts to the lunar surface, but it is unlikely to fly before 2026.
The timing of these missions will depend on how much support the incoming Biden administration is prepared to invest in NASA’s exploration activities.
Today’s meeting agenda “suggests that it will be a kind of ‘victory lap’ for the Trump administration to take note of its achievements in the civil and military space,” according to Ars.
The online magazine also reported that the public announcement has caused some concern at NASA’s Houston-based Office of Astronauts.
Although NASA did not officially comment, Ars reported there was concern “that it would essentially create a group of ‘favorites’ within the office, undermining a shared sense of unity among space flyers.”
The United States is still the only country that has taken people to the moon
From NASA Artemis Program – named after Apollo’s mythological sister, the namesake of the first lunar mission – aimed to bring the first woman and next man to the lunar surface by 2024, although that date is now in doubt.
While president-elect Joe biden has appointed members of his NASA transition team, he has not yet set his administration’s priorities for the space agency or the Artemis program.
Along with the astronaut landings, NASA intended to establish a “Lunar Gateway” outpost, which will be orbiting the moon in the mid-2020s, and then lunar landers to deliver cargo to the surface by the end of the 2020s.
The OIG report stated that due to the many challenges facing the Lunar Gateway mission, “we anticipate further schedule delays and cost increases, making it unlikely that Gateway will be available for the planned lunar landing in 2024.” .
It is unclear if these missions will continue or if they will be postponed.
Donald Trump has flown to Florida to watch NASA launches during his presidency
Some reports hope that, as president, Biden will reprioritize the agency’s climate change investigation, reimbursing missions that the Trump administration sidelined.
His administration could then push back the lunar landing date to 2028, in line with a bill proposed by the U.S. House of Representatives science committee that backed plans to venture to Mars, but on a scale of longer time.
The OIG report stated: “Over the past decade, our oversight work has found NASA constantly struggling to address each of these major issues and the accelerated schedule for the Artemis mission is likely to further exacerbate these challenges.”
The agency had always recognized the 2024 date as an “ambitious timeline,” noting that spaceflight systems “can take six to eight years to develop” with less than five years left for the agency to meet its target of 2024.
