Cost overruns jeopardize Artemis moon landing, threaten NASA SLS rocket's future

A problem with a space capsule heat shield has forced NASA to postpone two highly anticipated flights to the moon, including one that would land astronauts on the lunar surface.

The heat shield is the latest in a series of setbacks for the Artemis project, which aims to return humans to the moon. President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to shake things up after returning to office, may delay Artemis even further.

Trump wants to cut government spending, and has brought billionaire and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk aboard to lead the effort.

That could jeopardize, or possibly even cancel, NASA’s Space Launch System, the expensive rocket designed to ferry Artemis astronauts to the moon and later to Mars. The SLS has been criticized for cost overruns and delays in development.

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Artemis missions use the SLS as a launch rocket for the Orion spacecraft, which carries astronauts.

Introduced in 2011, the SLS, larger and more powerful than the Saturn V rockets that took Apollo missions to the moon, “is a super heavy-lift rocket … for human exploration beyond Earth orbit,” NASA says.

Cancellation is purely speculative at this point. But SLS costs have increased. NASA officials told the Government Accountability Office "that at current cost levels, the SLS program is unaffordable," the GAO reported in September 2023.

NASA asked for $11.2 billion in fiscal year 2024 to fund the project through 2028.

"In December 2022, Artemis I completed its 25-day uncrewed test mission after launch delays of nearly four years and billions of dollars in cost increases," according to a NASA assessment in October 2023.

"NASA’s total Artemis campaign costs are projected to reach $93 billion from fiscal year 2012 through 2025, with SLS Program costs representing 26 percent ($23.8 billion) of that total," the NASA report said.

Moon missions rescheduled

The space agency announced the two spaceflight postponements on Dec. 5, Reuters reported. Artemis II, a crewed flight that would circle the moon but not land, was moved to April 2026 from September 2025.

The Artemis III mission, which would put humans on the lunar surface for the first time since 1972, shifts to 2027 from 2026.

Flight delay and cost overrun specifics

Heat shield cracks were found on the Orion space capsule after the otherwise successful flight of Artemis I, in which the uncrewed spacecraft circled the moon and returned to Earth in December 2022.

NASA says the newly found heat shield problem can be minimized by recalculating Orion’s trajectory for its reentry into Earth’s atmosphere and slowing it from about 25,000 mph to about 325 mph before its parachutes deploy.

But other government reports have criticized SLS development:

• March 2020: A report by NASA's Office of the Inspector General says costs for the spacecraft could exceed $50 billion, more than originally planned.
• May 2023: Another Inspector General report criticizes the NASA's management of the SLS boosters and engines.
• September 2023: A U.S. Government Accountability Office report criticizes NASA's lack of transparency and tracking of production cost overruns. The report says the SLS rocket program doesn't offer long-term sustainability or affordability. 
• August 2024: A NASA Inspector General report finds lapses in quality control in Boeing's work on the next version of the SLS.

Policy changes are possible for the space program under Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20.

The reports and stories about the incoming Trump administration are fueling speculation that the SLS program could be canceled, reports Space.com, which says NASA could be forced to use private contractors in future space exploration.

That includes SpaceX, which is already working with NASA on moon landings. Though payload capacities differ, its Starship rockets eventually could replace the SLS but not anytime soon, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in an interview with the German news outlet Der Spiegel in 2022.

Trump has chosen Jared Isaacman, a billionaire private astronaut and business associate of Trump and Musk, to lead NASA, Reuters reported. Isaacman is expected to increase NASA's use of private companies for getting to space as a commercial service, Reuters said. 

Eric Berger, a senior space editor at Ars Technica, wrote on X that there's a 50-50 chance SLS will be canceled.

No official announcements have been made about the future of the SLS.

Trump supported American space exploration in his first administration. His Space Policy Directive 1 in December 2017 formed a U.S.-led program in partnership with the private sector.

Under that directive, astronauts would return to the moon, and later missions would aim for Mars and beyond.

Trump said in 2019, however, that the U.S. should go to Mars instead of the moon.

Future NASA delays may make it possible for China to land its taikonauts on the moon before the U.S returns there. China says its moon landing will take place in 2030. NASA's current timeline has a crewed Artemis landing in 2027.

Both nations are looking for lunar landings at the moon's south polar region, where deep craters may contain water ice.

Water ice could be a valuable resource for lunar exploration, says the World Economic Forum, and could be converted to drinking water or used in production of fuel and oxygen.

CONTRIBUTING Jamie Groh and Brooke Edwards, FLORIDA TODAY

SOURCE Paste BN Network reporting and research; Reuters; NASA; space.com