Audit Report: Will the Artemis Astronauts Have Spacesuits?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: NASA OIG

A new audit report from NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) expressed some concerns about whether the contractor, Axiom Space, will have spacesuits ready in time for the planned lunar landing.

The audit report, NASA’s Acquisition of Next-Generation Spacesuit Services, states:

NASA faces challenges in ensuring next-generation spacesuits are available to meet the Agency’s current schedules for the Artemis lunar landing mission in 2028 and prior to the ISS’s decommissioning in 2030. NASA’s original schedules to demonstrate the lunar and microgravity spacesuits in 2025 and 2026, respectively, were overly optimistic and ultimately proved unachievable, as evidenced by delays of at least a year and a half for both spacesuits. Based on our analysis, if Axiom experiences design and testing delays in line with the historical average for recent space programs, the Artemis and ISS demonstrations may not occur until 2031.

That is a damning conclusion at a time NASA is struggling with other Artemis timetables. All of the pieces need to come together soon, including the necessary equipment for the lunar surface. It also does not help that NASA is completely reliant on one contractor for these spacesuits. Even the lunar lander has two competing contractors.

NASA Administrator Isaacman has one more item now keeping him awake at night.

Sci-Fi Quote: To Titan and Beyond

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Apple TV

“I think the promise of the show was always that we were going to go beyond just the moon and Mars. I think that’s kind of what I think Titan represents. It’s one of those steps we’ve been looking to make from the very beginning. I will say you’ll see more of it. I don’t want to get into details of what exactly is going to happen, but yes, Titan is very much a plan for this season in particular. So anyone who’s been following so far will see the next steps in the next few episodes.“

-Statement by For All Mankind’s executive producer Ben Nedivi in an interview with ScreenRant regarding the latest season of the television series. The alternative history series started the fifth season with a growing Happy Valley Martian colony. The new space race is aiming for Saturn’s moon. Whether this is the last stop before the series ends with season six is anybody’s guess.

Pic of the Week: Hubble and the Crab Nebula

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): A 2024 image of the Crab Nebula captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA, ESA, STScI, William Blair (JHU); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI))

This week’s image is from the Hubble Space Telescope. It is an image of the Crab Nebula taken 25 years after the Hubble’s first image of the nebula. If you want to learn more about this history, a paper titled The Crab Nebula Revisited Using HST/WFC3 can be found in The Astrophysical Journal.

Here is a little more from NASA on earlier sightings of the nebula:

This new Hubble observation continues a legacy that stretches back nearly 1,000 years, when astronomers in 1054 recorded the supernova as an impressively bright new star that, for weeks, was visible even during the day. The Crab Nebula is the aftermath of SN 1054, located 6,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus…

The supernova remnant was discovered in the mid-18th century, and in the 1950s Edwin Hubble was among several astronomers who noted the close correlation between Chinese astronomical records of a supernova and the position of the Crab Nebula. The discovery that the heart of the Crab contained a pulsar — a rapidly rotating neutron star — that was powering the nebula’s expansion finally aligned modern observations and ancient records.

De-orbit is a Polite Word for the End of Bluebird 7

Posted on by onespaceman2000
image (Credit): The Bluebird satellites being launch in the news few years. (AST)

Sunday’s failed satellite launch by Blue Origin will have a number of repercussions.

  • Rocket Company Issues: Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket will be grounded while the Federal Aviation Administration investigates the matter.
  • Satellite Company Issues: AST, the owner of the Bluebird 7 satellite placed in the wrong orbit, will now need to “de-orbit” its satellite. This means the satellite will be burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere. It also means that the roll out of AST SpaceMobile will be delayed, which has impacted the company’s stock.
  • Artemis Issues: The timeline for Artemis III, where NASA tests the lunar landers, may need to be delayed, at least for Blue Origin. Of course, SpaceX is having its own problems getting its Starship ready.
  • Astronomy Issues: The Bluebird satellites have been controversial because of their large size. This will only add to the growing light pollution from orbiting satellites that impact ground-based astronomers. So, in this case, with the loss of Bluebird 7 the astronomers get a reprieve for now.

So, three negative outcomes and one position outcome. A turnaround on all of these issues will take time, including the design of the satellite itself. While it appears each generation of the Bluebird satellite is getting larger, this could be a fixable problem given that AST stated it is willing to work with the National Science Foundation to limit the damage to the night sky.

Plenty of issues arising out of one launch.

Stay tuned.