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Nelson told a news conference at NASA headquarters that the next Artemis mission, sending astronauts around the moon and back, has slipped to April 2026, with the subsequent astronaut landing mission using SpaceX's Starship planned for the following year.

"Assuming the SpaceX lander is ready, we plan to launch Artemis III in mid-2027," Nelson said.
"That will be well ahead of the Chinese government's announced intention" to land on the lunar surface by 2030, Nelson added, illustrating the competition between the world's top two space powers as they race to the moon.

Still obsessed in winning an one-man "competetion". However this updated plan gives SpaceX two full years to do their job (a mock landing), which seems more realistic. SpaceX should thank Lockheed Martin. It is worth to note that the original plan was 2028. After political game show, everything goes back (almost) to the starting point. It once again shows that objective is dictated by science and reality on the ground, not politic will.

taxiya said:

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Nelson told a news conference at NASA headquarters that the next Artemis mission, sending astronauts around the moon and back, has slipped to April 2026, with the subsequent astronaut landing mission using SpaceX's Starship planned for the following year.

"Assuming the SpaceX lander is ready, we plan to launch Artemis III in mid-2027," Nelson said.
"That will be well ahead of the Chinese government's announced intention" to land on the lunar surface by 2030, Nelson added, illustrating the competition between the world's top two space powers as they race to the moon.

Still obsessed in winning an one-man "competetion". However this updated plan gives SpaceX two full years to do their job (a mock landing), which seems more realistic. SpaceX should thank Lockheed Martin. It is worth to note that the original plan was 2028. After political game show, everything goes back (almost) to the starting point. It once again shows that objective is dictated by science and reality on the ground, not politic will.

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A mock landing requires Starship V2 at minimum, which need to fly early next year, then about 15 to 20 successful both stage reuse refuel missions, all done in quick succession with no zero failure and zero divert.

2 years was how long its taken V1 to get to where it is now, which isnt bad, but when it comes to reliability, 90/10 rule starts to kick in. So we'll see

There's a very good chance that SLS is cancelled under Trump/Elon, which will just add more delays. They will have to basically redo Artemis from scratch using Starship.

iewgnem said:

A mock landing requires Starship V2 at minimum, which need to fly early next year, then about 15 to 20 successful both stage reuse refuel missions, all done in quick succession with no zero failure and zero divert.

2 years was how long its taken V1 to get to where it is now, which isnt bad, but when it comes to reliability, 90/10 rule starts to kick in. So we'll see

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Basically they have a few years to perfect orbital refueling, zero boiloff and landings, launch 17 times at a cadence of 1 per week to land three people on the moon. Also one SLS with Orion will be launched to carry the crew.

gpt said:

Basically they have a few years to perfect orbital refueling, zero boiloff and landings, launch 17 times at a cadence of 1 per week to land three people on the moon. Also one SLS with Orion will be launched to carry the crew.

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Add that HLS need to keep 200 tons of cryogenic fuel from boiling on the lunar surface for 6 days under both direct and reflected thermal radiation.

And this in the context China doing it all on 2x launches for same number of crew on surface, with a crash stage lander design that end mission 8n lunar orbit, so likely reusable and future missions might only need 1x LM10 + 1x LM7 for new crash stage using electric

SlothmanAllen said:

Obviously SpaceX just totally dominates, but I think that hides the fact that Electron has had 13 launches

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Wow...that's already alot for a fairly new company. US space industry will dominate for sometime it seems. SpaceX alone is juggernaut though. Makes every other space company or agency looks slow.

antwerpery said:

There's a very good chance that SLS is cancelled under Trump/Elon, which will just add more delays. They will have to basically redo Artemis from scratch using Starship.

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Cancelling SLS is equivalent to cancelling the entire Artemis program, including the Orion spacecraft and the Gateway. The core of the Artemis program is to bring allies, Europe, and Japan together to invest in the project. After cancelling SLS, a complete re-planning of the lunar landing around the Starship is necessary, rendering the original Artemis program's spacecraft and Gateway essentially useless. Isn't this a betrayal to allies? The cancellation of the Artemis program would lead to the collapse of the hard-won space alliance of more than 40 countries against China and Russia. The United States is really playing with fire.

Michael90 said:

Wow...that's already alot for a fairly new company. US space industry will dominate for sometime it seems. SpaceX alone is juggernaut though. Makes every other space company or agency looks slow.

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If SpaceX is allowed to grow unchecked, the U.S. will inevitably lose in the space sector after 2040.
You haven't realized that space technology covers a very broad range of fields, and SpaceX only has advantages in a very small technical area.
An overemphasis on SpaceX financially will only lead to a contraction of investment in many areas of U.S. space endeavors.
This will result in regression in many space technology fields for the U.S. after 2040.
SpaceX/Musk is not a god; his thinking is very extreme.
For example, his recent views on lidar. The more sensor data is integrated, the stronger the machine/computer's perception ability of the environment will be.
The stronger the resistance to interference, which is common knowledge in the industry.
Nowadays, lidar is not like in 2017/2018, costing $80,000 per unit; now it's 3,000 RMB ($500) per unit.
The industry is even striving for a lidar unit at 1,000 RMB ($135).
The problems with pure visual recognition are obvious; Tesla's FSD has to downgrade autonomous driving in rainy conditions.
The normal thinking is that low-cost models provide pure visual self-driving systems, while high-end models integrate vision, radar, and lidar.
Musk, however, flatly denies the benefits of lidar. Such decision-making is definitely not good for a company's future.

There are many visible issues with Starship, and many people have raised various opinions long ago, but Musk doesn't want to change. There are many such rumors.
Therefore, if NASA were to appoint a director overly inclined towards SpaceX, and really did support SpaceX at the expense of other things.

It's likely that American space endeavors won't even make it to 2040; problems might arise as early as 2035.

antwerpery said:

There's a very good chance that SLS is cancelled under Trump/Elon, which will just add more delays. They will have to basically redo Artemis from scratch using Starship.

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SpaceX HLS can not bring astranaut back to earth, therefor need redo everything around starship. If Trump still want to land men on the moon before China, SLS and Orion will stay.

taxiya said:

SpaceX HLS can not bring astranaut back to earth, therefor need redo everything around starship. If Trump still want to land men on the moon before China, SLS and Orion will stay.

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Well technically theres a way, 15 refuels for each of the 20 refuels needed to refuel HLS in NRLO for returnto LEO, so 300 missions

Honestly the idea of using a stainless steel chemical rocket for deep space is insane, its one of those emperor has no clothe problems, nobody in the US want to talk about it because nobody want to be the outlier in the SpaceX fan bubble.

Meanwhile China's developing megawatt iron thrusters and space reactors.