NASA announces major overhaul of Artemis moon program "to take down risk"
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced significant changes to the agency's Artemis program, which aims to land on the moon in 2028.
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Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2's flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of "Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia."
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced significant changes to the agency's Artemis program, which aims to land on the moon in 2028.
Fixing the Space Launch System rocket's helium pressurization problem has pushed the Artemis II launch to at least April 1.
The Artemis II mission aims to send four astronauts — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — on a flight around the far side of the moon and back.
A successful fueling test prompts NASA to press ahead toward a March 6 moonshot.
Astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunita Williams were expecting to spend eight to 10 days in space. They ended up remaining in orbit for 286 days.
Engineers were able to fully fuel NASA's Artemis II moon rocket without any signs of leaks like the ones that derailed an earlier dress rehearsal.
The Crew 12 docking came one month after a previous crew had to return to Earth early due to a medical issue.
The two-woman, two-man crew is replacing four other station fliers who came home early last month due to a medical issue one was having.
A United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket carrying classified Space Force payloads suffered a booster problem but apparently made an otherwise "nominal" ascent to space, the company said.
The new crew will replace four station fliers who returned to Earth ahead of schedule last month due to a medical issue.
NASA plans to test the planned leak repair with a second dress rehearsal fueling test later this month.
NASA says it can't try until March at the earliest to send a crewed spacecraft on a flight around the moon and back, due to hydrogen leaks during testing of the Artemis II rocket.
If the countdown and fueling test go well, four astronauts will set their sights on a Super Bowl Sunday launch to the moon.
The first Artemis moonshot with a crew is now targeted for no earlier than Feb. 8, two days later than planned.
Four Artemis II astronauts plan to fly around the moon and back next month, traveling farther from Earth than any humans before them.