Artemis Human Landing Systems (HLS): is Blue Origin’s Blue Moon (l) likely to usurp SpaceX’s Starship HLS (r) for Artemis 3? Credit: Blue Origin / SpaceX
What has long been recognised by many who follow the US-led Project Artemis programme to return humans to the Moon now appears to be becoming recognised within the upper echelons of NASA’s management. Namely, that the biggest hold-up to the programme’s primary goal of safely landing a crew on the surface of the Moon and returning them to lunar orbit remains the inability of SpaceX to meet NASA’s – or even its own – time frames and deadlines in the development its Starship-derived Human Landing System (HLS) vehicle.
SpaceX was awarded the contract to develop the initial vehicle intended to deliver crews from cislunar space to the Moon’s South Pole and then return them back to cislunar space over five years ago, in May 2020. At the time, the announcement was controversial for a numbers of reasons:
It was both a last-minute entry into the competition to provide NASA with a suitable HLS vehicle, and the most technically complex of the three major proposal which went forward to the final selection process, requiring up to 14 launches of the SpaceX Starship / Superheavy system just to get it to lunar orbit.
The SpaceX HLS system for Artemis 3, comprising an orbital “refuelling depot” (far left) plus multiple Starship tanker launches (centre left) and the Starship HLS itself in order to deliver a 2-person crew launched by SLS / Orion (centre) to / from the surface of the Moon, with Orion returning them to Earth with their fellow Orion crew (right). Note that while only 4 “tanker” launches are shown in this graphic, given current projected Starship payload capacities, the number is more likely to be 8-12 such launches. Credit: SpaceX
Despite NASA stating two options for the initial HLS would be selected, only the SpaceX option was carried forward in the so-called “Option A” contract, with NASA providing SpaceX with an initial US $2.89 billion for vehicle development, with both Blue Origin and Dynetics effectively being frozen out.
The driving force behind the decision to go exclusively with SpaceX was NASA associate Administrator Kathryn Lueders, who had a long-standing relationship with SpaceX, and who subsequently retired from NASA in 2023 to join SpaceX. Whilst highly speculative in nature, there have been fingers pointed towards this chain of events as being more than coincidental.
The decision to go with SpaceX alone for at least the Artemis 3 mission (the first planned crewed landing) was upheld by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) in July 2021 after both Blue Origin and Dynetics filed complaints about the handling of the contract on NASA’s part. This decision came in spite of NASA’s own Office of Inspector General (OIG) having already reporting that the agency’s own estimates for the development time frame for HLS (four years) was entirely unrealistic, and that due to its complexity the SpaceX HLS approach would potentially result in the most severe of anticipated delays in HLS development, requiring up to 4 additional years of development and testing in order to be flight-ready.
In December 2023, a NASA Key Decision Point (KDP) review for Artemis 3, intended to assess whether or not the programme was on course to meet its intended targets, rated SpaceX as having only a 70% of achieving a required uncrewed demonstration test flight of their HLS vehicle (including landing it on the Moon and returning it to lunar orbit) by February 2028, some two years behind the Option A contract goal of flying this mission in mid-2026.
Oddly, both SpaceX and NASA placed part of the blame for the delay to the demonstration test with on-going (at the time) issues with the Orion crew capsule heat shield – even though Orion is an entirely separate vehicle to HLS, and does not form part of the contracted SpaceX HLS demonstration flight.
Further, while SpaceX has pointed to the 30 HLS development milestones it has achieved, these relate to hardware needed for power generation, communications, guidance and navigation, propulsion, life support, and space environments protection, rather than the vehicle as a whole, with some of these milestones either relating purely to the definition of some of this hardware, rather than any form of development and / or integrated testing.
Whilst SpaceX points to having achieved some 30 hardware milestones for its HLS vehicle, several of these milestones refer to system definitions, rather than hardware development, whilst other elements – such as the elevator system required to get the down the 30 metres separating the vehicle’s crew section from the surface of the Moon – has largely been driven by NASA rather than SpaceX. Credit: NASA / SpaceX
By the start of 2024, concerns around SpaceX’s ability to actually deliver on their promises for their HLS vehicle were such that Jim Free, the man then at NASA charged with overseeing the Artemis programme, was openly talking in terms of potentially swapping the Artemis 3 and Artemis 5 missions, the latter intended to be the first use of the Blue Moon HLS system in development by Blue Origin, and which at the time was seen as much further along in its development cycle than the SpaceX system.
Whilst Free has since retired from NASA, the acting administrator for the agency, Sean Duffy, echoed Free’s point of view on October 20th, 2025, indicating that he is now open to reviewing the Artemis 3 HLS contract. In particular, he has also suggested shifting to using Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander on the basis of growing scepticism that SpaceX will have their HLS system ready for Artemis 3 by 2028/29.
Whilst Artemis 3 remains mired in conflict, Artemis 2, the first crewed mission for the programme using NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion, achieved a further milestone on it wat to the launch pad on October 20th, 2025, when the Orion vehicle, encased in its launch shroud and topped by the Launch Abort System, was lowered from a high bay within the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, and mated to its adaptor on the top of the SLS rocket. Artemis 2 is currently expected to launch in March 0r April 2026 on a 10-day mission around the Moon. Credit: NASA
Unsurprisingly in this age of politics by insult, Duffy’s comments were met with childish name-calling on the part of the SpaceX CEO. To be sure, Duffy is perhaps not the best qualified to be leading NASA even on an interim basis (and has made a fair number of gaffes as head of the Department of Transportation); but as per the reasons noted above, there is good reason to question whether SpaceX can meet its obligations for HLS even within the revised times frame for the Artemis 3 mission (which is now looking to a possible 2028 launch).
Nor did the SpaceX CEO limit his scorn to Duffy; in the same string of social media posts he took aim at Blue Origin, claiming the company “has never delivered a payload to orbit, let alone the Moon” (which he later refined to mean “useful payload”). Given that the launch vehicle for Blue Moon – Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket – both successfully achieved Earth orbit and deployed a payload demonstrator on its maiden flight, both of which Starship has yet to do in a single launch despite (at the time of writing) 11 flights, this critique came over as little more than a petulant outburst than a reasoned defence of Starship HLS.
Following Duffy’s statements – which appear to also be driven in part by concerns over China’s stated aim to place taikonauts on the Moon by 2030 – speculation was rife in some circles as to whether NASA might seek to an alternative to SpaceX and Blue Origin as the Artemis 3 HLS provider. This speculation encapsulated both the idea that NASA might try for a “home-grown” HLS, or bring-in another company – such as Lockheed Martin (which has made no secret of its desire to supply an HLS alongside of its Orion crew vehicle) – to provide a suitable HLS.
However, given the lead-times involved in seriously moving forward with either of these options (which would likely see Artemis 3 pushed back well beyond a 2029), coupled with the costs involved when the Trump Administration is aggressively trying to reduce NASA’s budget, it would seem unlikely that either of these options would be seriously taken-up. As it stands and in the wake of Duffy’s comments, NASA has confirmed that both Blue Origin and SpaceX have been given until October 29th, 2025 to submit “accelerated proposals” for HLS development, but no other proposals for “alternate” HLS vehicles are currently being sought.
Exactly where this will all lead is also open to debate. As does, ironically enough, the overall leadership of NASA. Whilst only appointed Acting Administrator for the agency, Duffy has spent some of his time in the role floating the idea that NASA should be folded into his Department of Transportation. Were this to happen, it would effectively cement his position as the person in overall charge of the agency and its budget – although the idea has already received widespread pushback from the US space industry as a whole. At the same time, the White House has indicated it is possibly going to re-nominate Jared Isaacman for the role of NASA Administrator.
As I reported at the time in this pages, Isaacman was on the verge of being confirmed to the role earlier in 2025, when Trump’s White House abruptly withdrew his name as their nominee following a public spat between Trump and the SpaceX CEO (with whom Isaacman has had a close working relationship for several years), who at the time was coming to the end of his tenure as a “special advisor” to the White House. However, on October 14th, it was revealed that the Trump Administration has again been in talks with Isaacman about a potential resumption of his nomination to lead NASA, which he apparently is still interested in doing.
The Artemis 2 mission profile. Credit: Canadian Space Agency (CSA)
NASA has announced that Artemis 2 – the first mission of the programme to send a crew to cislunar space – is now targeting a launch for the period between February 5th, 2026 and the end of April 2026.
The 10-day mission will carry a crew of four – three Americans and one Canadian – to the vicinity of the Moon and then back to Earth aboard an Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) in what will be the final test of that vehicle and its systems, together with the second flight of NASA’s Block 1 Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The latter – SLS – is currently undergoing the final steps in its assembly process. Earlier this year the core and upper stages of the rocket were stacked at Kennedy Space Centre’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), where the two solid rocket boosters also stacked within the VAB were then attached to either side of the rocket’s core stage.
Meanwhile, and as I noted in August 2025, the Orion vehicle for the mission, together with its European-built Service Module, moved from NASA’s Multi-Payload Processing Facility (MPPF) to the Launch Abort System Facility (LASF), where it is being mated with its launch abort system tower. Once completed, the combination of Orion and launch abort system will be transferred to the VAB for installation on the SLS vehicle.
Two images of NASA engineers installing the Orion Stage Adapter (just visible, top left) onto the the top of the mission’s SLS launch vehicle, inside the High Bay of the Vehicle Assembly building (VAB), Kennedy Space Centre, September 2025. Credit: NASA
To this end, at the end of September 2025, NASA integrated the Artemis 2 Orion Stage Adapter with the rest of the SLS system. As its name suggests, the Orion Stage Adapter is the element required to mate Orion to the launch vehicle. In addition, the adapter will be used to deploy four CubeSats containing science and technology experiments into a high Earth orbit after Orion has separated from the SLS upper stage and is en route to the Moon.
Also at the end of September, the four crew due to fly the mission – Reid Wiseman (mission commander), Victor Glover, and Christina Koch all from NASA, and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen – revealed the name they had chosen for their Orion capsule: Integrity.
A couple months ago, we thought, as a crew, we need to name this spacecraft. We need to have a name for the Orion spacecraft that we’re going to ride this magical mission on. And so we got the four of us together and our backups, Jenny Gibbons from the Canadian Space Agency and Andre Douglas from NASA, and we went over to the quarantine facility here, and we basically locked ourselves in there until we came up with a name.
– Artemis 2 mission commander, Reid Wiseman
The Artemis 2 crew (l to r: Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen and NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Reid Wiseman) outside the Astronaut Crew Quarters inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building during an integrated ground systems test at Kennedy Space Centre, September 20th, 2023. Credit: Kim Shiflett
Integrity will be the second Orion capsule to join NASA’s operational fleet, the first being the still unnamed craft flown during the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission in 2022. That mission revealed an issue with the initial design of the vehicle’s re-entry heat shield, which received more and deeper damage than had been anticipated (see: Space Sunday: New Glenn, Voyager and Orion). This delayed Artemis 2 in order for investigations into the cause to take place and solutions determined.
In short: a return from the Moon involves far higher velocities than a return from Earth orbit (entering the atmosphere at 40,000 km/h compared to 28,000 km/h), resulting in far higher temperatures being experienced as the atmosphere around the vehicle is super-heated by the friction of the vehicle’s passage through it, further leading to increased ablation of the heat shield. This could be offset by using a very substantial and heavy heat shield, but as Orion is also intended to be launched on vehicles other than SLS and for other purposes (e.g. just flying to / from low Earth orbit), it is somewhat mass-critical and in need of a more lightweight heat shield.
As a result, rather than making a single plunge back into Earth’s atmosphere at the end of lunar missions, Orion was supposed to perform a series of initial “skips” or “dips” in and out of the denser atmosphere. These would allow the vehicle bleed-off velocity ahead of a “full” re-entry whilst also reducing the amount of plasma heating to which the ablative material of the heat shield would be exposed.
However, post-flight analysis of the heat shield used in the Artemis 1 mission of 2022, it was found that the heat shield had suffered extensive and worryingly deep material loss – referred to as “char loss”, resulting in a series of deep pits within the heat shield. Investigation revealed the cause of this being the initial “skips” the vehicle made into and out of the denser atmosphere.
While these “skips” did indeed reduce the load on the outer layers of the heat shield, they also had the unintended impact of heating-up gases trapped inside the ablative layers of the heat shield during its construction, causing the underlying layer of the material in the heat shield to expand and contract and start to crack and break. They, when the capsule entered its final plunge through the atmosphere prior to splashdown, the material over these damaged areas ablated away as intended, exposing the damaged material, which then quickly broke-up to leave the pits and holes.
Two of the official NASA images showing the severe pitting and damage caused to the Orion heat shield following re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere at the end of the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission, December 11th, 2022. Credit: NASA / NASA OIG
To mitigate this, Artemis 3 and 4 will fly with a redesigned heat shield attached to their Orion capsules. However, Artemis 2 will fly with the same design as used in Artemis 1, but its re-entry profile has been substantially altered so it will carry out fewer “skips” in and out of the atmosphere before the final entry, and will do so at angles that will reduce the amount of internal heating within the heat shield layers.
Ahead of its launch, the complete Artemis 2 launch vehicle and payload should be rolled-out from the VAB to the launch pad early in 2026. It will then go through a series of pre-flight demonstration tests, up to and including a full “wet dress rehearsal”, wherein the rocket will be fully fuelled with propellants and go through a full countdown and lunch operation, stopping just short of actually igniting the engines. These test will then clear the way for the crewed launch.
Flying over Mars with Mars Express
When it comes to exploring Mars, NASA understandably tends to get the lion’s share of attention, simply by volume of its operational missions on and around the Red Planet. However, they are far from alone; Mars is very much an international destination, so to speak. One of the longest continuous missions to operate around Mars, for example, is Europe’s Mars Express mission, an orbiter which has been studying Mars for more than 22 years, marking it as the second-longest running such mission after NASA’s Mars Odyssey mission (now in its 24th year since launch).
During its time in orbit, Mars Express has provided the most complete map of the Martian atmosphere and its chemical composition currently available; produced thousands of high-definition images of the planet’s surface, revealing many of its unique features whilst also helping scientists understand the role of liquid water in the formation of the ancient Martian landscape; acted as a communications relay between other Mars missions and Earth, and it has even studied the innermost of Mars’ two captive moons, Phobos.
An infographic released by the European Space Agency in 2023 to celebrate 20 years of continuous operations by Mars Express around Mars. Credit: ESA
It is through the high-definition images returned by the orbiter that ESA has at times promoted the mission to the general public, notably through the release of galleries of images and the production of detailed “flyover” videos of the planet, revealing its unique terrain to audiences through the likes of You Tube. At the start of October 2025, ESA released the latest of these movies featuring the remarkable Xanthe Terra (“golden-yellow land”). Located just north of the Martian equator and to the south of Chryse Planitia where Viking Lander 1 touched-down on July 20th, 1976, and a place noted for its many indications that water played a major role in its formation.
The images used in the film were gathered using the orbiter’s High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) during a single orbit of the planet. Following their transmission to Earth, these were combined with topography data gathered in the same pass to create a three-dimensional view of a part of the region centred on Shalbatana Vallis, a 1300 km-long outflow channel running from the southern highlands into the northern lowlands on the edge of Chryse Planitia. The film also includes passage over Da Vinci crater. Some 100 km across, this crater is intriguing as it contains a smaller, more recent impact crater within it, complete with debris field.
Uranian Moon Ariel the Latest Moon to have an Ocean?
Jupiter’s Galilean moons of Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, together with Saturn’s Enceladus and Titan are all thought to have (or had) oceans of icy slush or liquid water under their surfaces. In the case of the Galilean moons, the evidence is so strong, Both NASA and ESA are currently sending probes to Jupiter to study them and their interiors. Similarly, the evidence for Enceladus – as I’ve covered numerous times in these pages – having a liquid water ocean under its ice is so powerful that calls for a mission to visit it are equally as strong.
Now Uranus is getting in on the act of having moons with what could be (or could have been) liquid water oceans under their surfaces, the latest contender being Ariel, the planet’s fourth largest and second closest of Uranus’s moons in hydrostatic equilibrium (i.e. largely globular in shape) to the planet, after Miranda.
Measuring just 1,160 km in diameter, Ariel is a comparatively tiny moon and not too much is known about it, other than it its density suggests it is made up of a mix of rock and ice, with a lean towards the latter. It orbits and rotates in Uranus’s equatorial plane, which is almost perpendicular to the planet’s orbit, giving the moon an extreme seasonal cycle. But the most remarkable aspect of Ariel is its extreme mix of geological structures: massive surface fractures, ridges and grabens – part of the moon’s crust that have dropped lower than its surroundings—at scales larger than almost anywhere else in the solar system.
The southern hemisphere of Ariel as imaged be NASA’s Voyager 2 in 1986, showing some of the extreme surfaces features – graben – along the line of the terminator. Credit: NASA; post-processing clean-up by Kevin M. Gill.
Only one space mission has come close to visiting Ariel. NASA’s Voyager 2 zipped by the moon in 1986 at a distance of 127,000 km. This allowed the probe’s camera system to gather images of around 35% of the moon’s surface that were of sufficient spatial resolution (approx. 2 km) so as to be useful for geological mapping. It has been these images which have allowed a team of researchers led by the Planetary Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to embark on an effort to understand Ariel’s likely interior structure and how its dramatic surface features might have been produced.
First, we mapped out the larger structures that we see on the surface, then we used a computer program to model the tidal stresses on the surface, which result from distortion of Ariel from soccer ball-shaped to slight football-shaped and back as it moves closer and farther from Uranus during its orbit. By combining the model with what we see on the surface, we can make inferences about Ariel’s past eccentricity and how thick the ocean might have been.
– Study co-author Alex Patthoff, Planetary Science Institute
Captured on July 26th, 2006 by the Hubble Space Telescope, this infrared image of Uranus showing tiny Ariel making a rare visible-from-Earth transit of its parent planet and casting a shadow on Uranus’ upper atmosphere. Credit: NASA / Space Telescope Science Institute
The movement of the moon towards and away from Uranus – its orbital eccentricity –is important, because it represents how much the moon is being affected by different gravitational forces from Uranus and the other four globular moons dancing around the planet. Forces which can causes stresses within the moon which might act as engines for generating the kinds of surface features imaged by Voyager 2.
Overall the team calculate that in the distant past, Ariel’s eccentricity was likely around 0.04. This doesn’t sound much, but it is actually 40 times greater that Ariel’s current eccentricity, suggesting that its orbit around Uranus was once more elliptical than we see today, but over the aeons it has gradually moved toward becoming more circular.
However, and more particularly, an eccentricity of 0.04 is actually four times greater than that of Jupiter’s Europa – a moon in an almost constant state of flux thanks to the gravitational influences of Jupiter and the other Galilean moons that it may well have a deep subsurface liquid ocean kept warm by geothermal venting powered by similar gravitational forces that may have been / are affecting Ariel.
Thus, if Ariel conforms to the Europan model, the team suggest that it could potentially harbour a liquid or semi-liquid water ocean, and that at one time, during the period of greatest orbital stresses, this ocean could have been entirely liquid in nature and some 170 kilometres deep. Such an ocean, the modelling revealed, would be fully capable of helping to produce surface features on Ariel of the same nature as those seen by Voyager 2, thanks to the internal stresses and movement of such a volume of water.
This same team carried out a similar study of tiny (just 470 km in diameter) Miranda. It also has curious surface features, a density suggesting it likely has an icy interior and a position where it is subject to contrasting gravitational forces courtesy of Uranus and the other moons. Applying their modelling to the available images data of Miranda also taken by Voyager 2, the team concluded there is a strong potential that at some point in the past, it may have had a subsurface liquid water ocean, although this may have long since become partially or fully frozen.
The highest-resolution Voyager 2 colour image of Ariel, captured in 1986. Canyons with floors covered by smooth plains – their smoothness believed to be the result of cryovolcanism – are visible at lower right. The bright crater Laica is at lower left. Credit: NASA/JPL
Whether or not either of these tiny moon does have any remaining subsurface liquid water, or whether their interiors have long since frozen, is obviously unknown. The team also admit that their work is entirely based on data gathered by Voyager 2 on the southern hemispheres of Miranda and Ariel; the nature of their northern hemispheres being entirely unknown. As such, a future study on both northern hemispheres might reveal factors and features that could dramatically change our understanding of both moons and their possible formation, and thus change the findings in both studies.
But for the meantime, two more potentially subsurface hycean moons in the solar system can be added to the list of such bodies.
NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle (MPCV):now earmarked for “phasing out” in the White House budget request for NASA. Credit NASA
In my previous piece on the NASA upcoming budget, as being put forward by the US 47th executive administration, I focused on how the proposal could impact NASA’s science capabilities. At the time, the entire budget request had yet to be published, and my article was based on what had been made public by way of passback documents circulating in Washington DC.
At that time, it was anticipated that the White House would push for around a 20% cut in NASA’s annual budget, the majority of which would target NASA’s Earth and Space Science operations. However, on Friday, May 2nd, 2025, the “skinny” version of the White House budget request was published, revealing that the administration is seeking an overall 24.8% cut in NASA’s spending compared to the agency’s existing budget. If enacted, it will be the biggest single-year cut in NASA’s entire history. And whilst around two-thirds of the proposed cuts do land squarely on NASA space / Earth science and legacy programmes, they do touch the agency’s human spaceflight ambitions as well.
First and foremost, the request calls for the immediate cancellation of the Lunar Gateway station (aka “Gateway”). This actually makes sense, simply because since its inception, Gateway has itself never made sense.
Starting as a series of studies called the Deep Space Gateway (DSG) in the mid-2010s, it became an official NASA project under – ironically – the first Trump Administration, when it became the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOP-G). It was presented at both a means to enable a return to the surface of the Moon and a gateway to the human exploration of the solar system. However, intended to occupy a Polar near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the Moon, travelling up to 70,000 km from the lunar surface whilst never coming closer than 3,000 km, it has been more a limitation than an enhancement to lunar operations.
An artist’s impression of the first two modules of Gateway – the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) passing by the Moon. Credit: NASA
While this orbit would allow for uninterrupted communications between the station and Earth, it also introduced multiple complexities of operation into any return to the Moon. As a result, multiple ancillary reasons for Gateway’s existence were cooked up: Earth sciences, heliophysics, fundamental space biology research, etc., all of which could be achieved more directly and cost-effectively through other means.
Thus, over the last 6 years Gateway has been consistently downsized and de-prioritised, constantly criticised by experts from within and outside NASA, and even seen as something of a complicated boondoggle in terms of design by those actually engaged in its design. Add to this the fact it offers little or nothing to lunar operations that could not be achieved from within a modest lunar orbit (200-300 km). Given all this, cancelling the project – even if it means pissing off international and commercial partners – is a sensible move.
As I noted in a recent Space Sunday report, the arrival of the Trump administration coincided with calls for the outright cancellation of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) on the ground of outright expense. but as I mentioned in that piece, any such complete cancellation of SLS would have left Artemis high and dry, and ideas of simply launching Orion utilising other launchers were as close to be nonsensical as to make no difference.
In a follow-up piece to that article, I suggested that a preferable approach would be to go ahead with Artemis with SLS until such time as the latter could be replaced. This is more-or-less what the Trump budget proposes, albeit it on a far tighter time frame; looking to “phase out” both SLS and Orion completely following the first lunar landing of the Artemis programme (Artemis 3), in favour of a “commercial” solution.
The Orion MPCV mounted atop its ESM and mating adaptor to be used in the Artemis 2 cislunar space mission, was officially handed over to NASA on May 1st, 2025. Credit: Lockheed Martin
Given that Artemis 3 is unlikely to fly before around 2028/9 (simply because the SpaceX lunar lander is unlikely to be ready before then), this does present an – albeit tight – window of opportunity; albeit one biased in favour of one commercial operator – SpaceX.
That company’s Crew Dragon vehicle has proven itself a remarkably versatile vehicle, capable of not only ferrying crews to the International Space Station, but also of carrying out space missions of 4-5 days duration in its own right. While its life-support and general facilities would require upgrade, as (likely) would the heat shield (which would have to protect the vehicle when re-entering Earth’s atmosphere at around 40,000 km/h compared to the 28,000 km/h experienced during a return from low-Earth orbit (LEO). But such upgrades are necessarily outside the realm of possibility.
A critical part of these upgrades would lie with the service module (aka “trunk”) supplying power and consumables (e.g. water and air) to Crew Dragon. This would have to be considerable beefier in terms of propellants and consumables it can carry, and also its propulsion. However, this is not something insurmountable. SpaceX has been working on a design for a “Dragon XL”, a large-capacity Cargo Dragon supported by an enhanced “trunk” which would have been used to support operations at Gateway. In theory, there’s a potential for this “trunk” to be enhanced into a suitable service module for Crew Dragon, allowing it to make trips to lunar orbit and back.
This does involve a number of challenges – one of them being how to launch such a combination. Currently, the heaviest payload SpaceX can send to the Moon is between 20-24 tonnes, using the Falcon Heavy (I am intentionally ignoring Starship here, as that is a long way from being anywhere near an operational, human-capable launch system). However, it’s unlikely a combined Crew Dragon + enhanced service module is going to fall within this limit (for example, the Apollo Command and Service modules massed 28.8 tonnes and Orion and its lightweight ESM mass 26.5 tonnes). Falcon Heavy is also not human-rated, so even if it could lob a Crew Dragon / enhanced service module combination to the Moon, it would need to undergo some degree of modification in order to gain a human flight rating, adding further complications.
Dragon XL: an uncrewed cargo vehicle NASA has requested from SpaceX to deliver cargo to to the Lunar Gateway station might help form a part of a replacement (also using Crew Dragon) for Orion to help deliver crews to lunar orbit. Credit: SpaceX
That said, even this is not a blocker: allowing for the risk of damage to the Crew Dragon’s heat shield, it might be possible to launch a crew to LEO atop a Falcon 9, allowing then to rendezvous and mate with an uprated service module and Falcon upper stage placed in to LEO by a Falcon Heavy. This would eliminate the need to human-rate Falcon Heavy whilst enabling the latter to launch a more capable combination of upper stage (to boost the combined Crew Dragon and service module onwards to the Moon) and service module to await the arrival of the Crew Dragon.
As noted, there are technical caveats involved in this approach. It also requires the provisioning of funding for said vehicle development – something not within the pages of this budget proposal; and it would make NASA exceptionally dependent on SpaceX for the success of Artemis.
Beyond changes NASA’s lunar ambitions, the 2026 budget request is seeking a reduction in International Space Station (ISS) spending of around half a billion dollars a year on 2024 spending, in “preparation” for the station’s 2030 decommissioning. The most immediate impact of the cut will be a reduction in overall ISS crew sizes, together with a reduction in the number of annual resupply missions – something that could impact the likes of Sierra Space with their contract for ISS resupply flights due to commence in 2026. In addition, the budget request seeks to “refocus” (aka “restrict”) research and space science activities in the ISS to those directly related to “efforts critical to the moon and Mars exploration programmes”. However, what this precisely means is not made clear.
Whilst promoting human mission to Mars, the budget proposal offers little if anything concrete, other than the cancellation of the automated Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, stating the return of any samples can be deferred until such time as humans reach Mars and can collect such samples directly.
Even in a massively simplified proposal from Rocket Lab (when compared to NASA’s multi-vehicle internationally-split idea), the Mars Sample Return Mission has been identified for complete cancellation. Credit: Rocket Lab
In this, MSR is the only science mission named for cancellation in the budget request. Given the manner in which NASA has consistently fumbled around with the mission over that last half-decade, its cancellation doesn’t come as a surprise. The non-mention of other programmes also doesn’t mean the concerns I raised in my previous Space Sunday have gone away; as noted, the budget request confirms the desire to make very deep cuts into NASA’s ability to carry out science and research across all disciplines.
Two additional programmes potentially impacted in this regard are the LandSat Earth imagining programme – which the Trump administration wants to see downscaled, and NASA’s research into what the administration calls “legacy space programmes” – such as their research into nuclear propulsion systems. The latter is again ironic given nuclear systems are potentially the most effective means of propulsion for Mars missions, and the budget request flag-waves the idea of humans to Mars.
As with Trump’s first term in office, the White House is seeking to eliminate all of NASA’s involvement in STEM and education (STEM being disgustingly referenced as being “woke” in the budget request). This includes cancelling the Established Programme to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). This is again ironic, given that during his initial Senate confirmation hearings, prospective NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman (who is now almost certain to be confirmed, following a 19-9 vote by the Senate Commerce Committee) referred to EPSCoR as an “essential” NASA educational programme because “it helps connect students and researchers from underserved regions and institutions to the opportunities that NASA provides.”
In my last update, I noted that there is a reported desire among some within the Administration to see at least one NASA centre – The Goddard Space Flight Centre – to be closed. While the budget request does not directly earmark any NASA centres for closure, it does call for NASA to “streamline the workforce, IT services, NASA Centre operations, facility maintenance, and construction and environmental compliance activities”. As such, downsizing / closures remains a threat, and Goddard remains the centre with direct responsibility for many aspects of NASA’s science missions.
All of the above said, this is – at this stage at least – only a budget request. It remains to be seen as to how those in both side of Capitol Hill respond, and whether the White House will actually listen if / when objections are raised. Given the attitude of many within (notably, but not exclusively) the Republican Party towards science, climate change, the environment, DEI (which the budget also targets), green initiatives, etc., I have my doubts as to whether strong objections to the cuts to NASA’s science programmes will be raised.
Certainly there has been some push-back from within the bipartisan U.S. Planetary Science Caucus, but thus far the loudest voices of protest have come from outside US government circles, such as the globally-respected American Astronomical society and The Planetary Society – two organisations well-versed in America’s leadership in the fields of space and science – among others.
If enacted, the 56% cut to the National Science Foundation, the 47% cut to NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, and the 14% cut to the Department of Energy’s Office of Science would result in an historic decline of American investment in basic scientific research. These cuts would damage a broad range of research areas that will not be supported by the private sector. The negative consequences would be exacerbated because many research efforts can require years to decades to mature and reach fruition. Without robust and sustained federal funding, the United States will lose at least a generation of talent to other countries that are increasing their investments in facilities and workforce development. This will derail not only cutting-edge scientific advances, but also the training of the nation’s future STEM workforce. These proposed cuts will result in the loss of American leadership in science.
– from a statement issued by the American Astronomical Society, May 2nd, 2025
As it is, NASA is already tightening its belt: on April 29th, 2025, it postponed the release of the Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for the next Small Explorer (SMEX) mission.
Established in 1988 as a continuation of and enhancement to the long-running Explorer Programme, SMEX focuses on well-defined and relatively inexpensive space science missions in the disciplines of astrophysics and space physics which cost less than US $170 million per mission (excluding launch). Currently, the last SMEX mission was selected in 2021, but its launch has been delayed until 2027. As such, the 2025 AO would have earmarked a launch window between 2027 and 2031 for the selected mission. However, given the potential for up to two-thirds of the agency’s astrophysics budget to be cut, NASA has indicated it would not now issue the SMEX AO “until at least 2026”.
It is anticipated that more upcoming requests for science mission proposals will be placed “on hold” whilst this budget request is debated.
The Trump administration is seeking a 20% reduction in NASA’s budget for 2025/26. If met, it would likely killed projects such as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, seen here in an artist’s rendering. Credit: NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been a pioneer in all fields of space exploration, planetary Sciences, Earth sciences, meteorology (alongside of its sister agency, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its predecessor, the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA)). It has also been responsible for many advances in aircraft systems and aviation safety ever since its formation in 1958.
NASA, like any bureaucracy, hasn’t always got things right. Nor has it always gone about things in the right way – Project Artemis currently standing as prime example of this. But, in term of its size and federal budget allocation, NASA is perhaps one of the most cost-effective and successful US federal organs in modern history, with an ability to achieve so much with what amounts to so little.
As an illustrations of what I mean by the above. In 66 years of operations, NASA’s budget has rarely exceeded 1% of the US federal budget in any given year. In fact its peek budgetary allocations came – unsurprisingly – in the era of Apollo, but even then only reached a peak of 4.41% of the total US budget (1966). By the start of this century, NASA’s budget represented just 0.80% of federal spending and was in decline as a whole. For the last 15 years it has stabilised, but has rarely exceeded 0.50%.
In 66 years, NASA’s budget has rarely exceeded 1% of the US federal budget. It’s peak period lay in the Apollo era, when it averaged 2.43% over a 13-year period (1962-1974, including Apollo Skylab)
That’s a long way from being the kind of black hole of federal expenditure far too many people take it to be, and in terms of overall expenditure, NASA represents bloody good bang for the buck. Yet – and perhaps because of that incorrect public assumption – it remains a soft target with it comes to cutting the federal budget. Sometimes, admittedly, these cuts are driven by economic needs at the time, others are due political priorities pointing elsewhere. However, it is fair to say none have ever been driven a dogma of intentional deconstruction fuelled by ignorance; but that is what NASA is now facing under the current US administration’s budget proposals, leaked in part on April 11th, 2025.
These call for NASA’s budget to be reduced by 20% in the name of “cost-saving”. As the lion’s share of NASA’s budget – 50% in total – is devoted to all aspects of human spaceflight, and thus considered inviolable when it comes to cuts, the proposal directly targets NASA’s science, aeronautics, technology research and administrative budgets. They involve calls for the complete closure of at least one NASA research centre and a slashing on NASA’s overall science budget by as much as 50%.
There is nothing accidental about this targeting; the architect of the NASA cuts proposal is Russell Vought, one of those behind Project 2025, and a man known for his profound anti-science beliefs and doctrine. Such is his animosity – shared by others in the administration – towards subjects such as climate change, Earth observation and resource management, he is seemingly content to take a meat cleaver and hack off what is potentially NASA’s most cost-effective limb, one consistently responsible for delivering a wealth of invaluable knowledge to the world as a whole, simply to end the agency’s ability to carry out research into subjects he views with personal enmity.
Chief among these cuts is a two-thirds reduction in astrophysics spending (reduced to US $487 million); a 50% cut in heliophysics (down to US $455 million); more than 50% slashed from Earth sciences (down to just over US $1 billion) and 30% cut from planetary sciences (reduced to under US $2 billion).
A 2010 view of a part of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre, Maryland. NASA’s first – and largest – research centre, the largest combined organization of scientists and engineers in the United States dedicated to increasing knowledge of the Earth, the Solar System, and the Universe via observations from space – under threat of closure. Credit: NASA
The budget also specifically earmarks the Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC), NASA’s first and largest science facility, with a staff of 10,000, for closure. The rationale for this, again, appears to be GSFC’s involvement in climate studies. However, such is the breadth and depth of its work, any such closure would cripple much of NASA’s research and science capabilities – something I’ll come back to below.
Within NASA, the proposal – initially dismissed by acting Administrator Janet Petro as “rumours from really not credible sources” when word surfaced about it ahead of its publication – is now being regarded as an “extinction level event” for NASA’s entire science capability.
The proposal has drawn sharp response from Capitol Hill, including the bipartisan Congressional Planetary Science Caucus, together with threats to “block” the budget’s move through the Senate.
If enacted, these proposed cuts would demolish our space economy and workforce, threaten our national security and defence capabilities, and ultimately surrender the United States’ leadership in space, science, and technological innovation to our adversaries. We will work closely with our colleagues in Congress on a bipartisan basis to push back against these proposed cuts and program terminations and to ensure full and robust funding for NASA Science in Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations.
Nominee for the post of NASA Administrator, Jared Isaacman, who is going through his confirmation process during April and already facing questions over his relationship with the SpaceX CEO (who is already impacting NASA through his DOGE scheme and in trying to influence the White House’s thinking over projects such as the ISS), described the budget proposal as “not optimal”, and stated that if confirmed, he would advocate “for strong investment in space science—across astrophysics, planetary science, Earth science, lunar science, and heliophysics—and for securing as much funding as the government can reasonably allocate.”
But while there may well be vows to block the proposed cuts and to “advocate” for science, concern has already been raised at to how effective or real they might be. The Trump administration has established a strong track record for decision-making by fiat, bypassing Congress altogether – and Congress (notably the House) has been largely content to sit and watch the edicts from the White House whoosh by.
Under US law, there is the means for the Executive to arbitrarily impose budgets on federal agencies. The process is referred to as “impoundment”. In theory it can only be used following the start of the next government fiscal year – in this case, October 1st, 2025 – and then only if Congress and the White House remain at loggerheads over budgets. However, it has been reported that those in the White House see impoundment as a means to set budgets by executive decree, regardless of whether October 1st has been reached, in the expectation that should push come to shove, Congress will continue to sit on its hands.
GISS – First of 1,000 cuts?
Some proof of this might be evident in the case of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). Established in May 1961, GISS is a research division of the Goddard Space Flight Centre, and since 1966 it has been located at the Armstrong Hall (named for Edwin Armstrong, not Neil), New York City.
Armstrong Hall, home of the GISS in New York City since 1966, now cut from federal building leases. Credit: NASA/Robert Schmunk
In the decades since its establishment, GISS has become renowned for its Earth Sciences research across a variety of disciplines, including agriculture, crop growth and sustainability and climatology. It has built some of the largest dataset on current and past climate trends and fluctuations. It has also contributed to the fields of space research, both on a cosmological scale and through multiple NASA solar system missions from Mariner 5 to Cassini-Huygens. Researchers at the GISS have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, the Heinz Award and the World Food Prize for contributions to physics, science, environmental awareness, and improving the availability of food around the world.
In other words, it is a major centre for US scientific achievement.
However, on April 25th, 2025, the Trump Administration summarily cancelled the lease on Armstrong Hall – operated by Columbia University – ending GISS’s tenure there as from May 31st 2025. Again, The reason for this has been given “government waste of taxpayer’s money” (the lease had a further 6 years to run at a cost of US $3.3 million a year) – but the aim appears to be ending the GISS’s ability to conduct climate research.
Responding to the news in an e-mail to staff, GSFC director Dr. Makenzie Lystrup stated a confidence that the work of the GISS will continue, as its value is in “data and personnel”, not location, and promised to find the GISS a new home. However, given that GSFC is itself under threat, it remains to be seen whether a long-term future can be found for GISS and its data. In the meantime, all GISS staff have been placed on “temporary remote working agreements”.
Hubble at 35
The news of budget reductions potentially hitting NASA’s science capabilities come at a time when arguably what is one of its most iconic missions – the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) – celebrates 35 years of almost continuous operations (allowing for down-times due to on-orbit servicing and the odd moments in “safe” modes as a result of on-board issues).
Launched in 1990, Hubble’s story is one of triumph over near-disaster. On reaching orbit, a tiny error on the manufacture of is 2.4 metre diameter primary mirror came into focus – or rather, out-of-focus. Polishing on the perimeter of the mirror meant it was “too flat” by some 2200 nanometres (that’s 1/450 mm, or 1/11000 in). While tiny, the error was catastrophic in terms of Hubble’s clarity of vision, and effectively ended any chance of it carrying out cosmological observations before they started.
Fortunately, as we all know, NASA had the space shuttle, and Hubble had been specifically designed to be launched and serviced by that vehicle. It was therefore possible to come up with an ingenious solution to correct the error in the primary mirror – not by replacing it, but by giving Hubble a pair of “glasses” to correct its vision.
The first “lens in the glasses” took the form of deliberately introducing errors into the optics of the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WF/PC-2), an instrument already in development at the time Hubble was launched, and due to replace a similar instrument already on the telescope. These errors would completely cancel out the defects in the mirror’s surface, allowing the camera to take the required super-high resolution images with complete clarity.
The second “lens in the glasses” was an entirely new instrument called COSTAR (Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement), designed to eliminate the mirror’s flaws from impacting the other science instruments on the telescope, until such time as these instruments could also be replaced by units with their own in-built corrective elements. COSTAR did require the removal of another instrument from Hubble – High Speed Photometer – but it meant Hubble would be able to carry out the vast majority of its science activities unimpeded.
To celebrate 35 years of observations by the Hubble Space Telescope, four iconic images to summarise the telescope’s abilities. Top left: Mars seen from a distance of 97.6 million km in December 2024. Top right: planetary nebula NGC 2899, some 3,000-4,000 light-years from the Sun. Bottom left: a portion of the Rosette Nebula some 5,000 light-years from our Sun. Bottom right: The galaxy NGC 5335, which is a flocculent spiral galaxy approx. 236 million light years from our Sun. Credit: NASA / ESA / STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
In December 1993, the shuttle Endeavour delivered the WF/PC-2 and COSTAR to Hubble, where they were successfully installed. By 2002, subsequent servicing missions had successfully updated all of the remaining science instruments on Hubble, allowing COSTAR to be returned to Earth. This occurred in 2009 when the final shuttle servicing mission replaced COSTAR with the Cosmic Origins Spectroscope (COS).
Throughout its life, Hubble has made thousands of observations and contributed massively to science programmes, our understanding of our solar system, galaxy, and the greater cosmos. It has participated in studies conducted around the world and contributed to a huge volume of science and education endeavours. And despite failures, aging equipment and other issues, it repeatedly allows itself to be pulled out of every “safe” mode and resume operations through servicing missions and – since 2009 – via remote diagnostics and correction.
Such is its capacity to keep right on going, it is affectionately known as NASA’s Energiser Bunny by many in the programme.
All of which is made all the more poignant by the fact that NASA’s entire space observatories mission is at risk of closure as a result of the proposed Trump budget. Hubble, together with its semi-siblings, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Chandra X-ray Telescope (itself only saved from abandonment in March 2024) are all financed out of NASA’s Astrophysics budget, which the Trump administration wants to cut by 66%. Were this to happen, NASA would likely be unable to continue to operate all three telescopes – or even two of them – and certainly would be unable to complete and launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. And even if one or more of the observatories were to survive the cuts, all are dependent on the Goddard Space Flight Centre for their operational and engineering infrastructure and support – which again, the budget proposing closing, a move that would kill the telescopes.
Hopefully, none of this will happen, but one cannot deny the dark shroud it casts over Hubble’s anniversary.
NOAA As Well
As noted, one of the most unsettling aspects with the proposed NASA cuts is the idea that the White House might seek to impose cuts and reductions by fiat, bypassing Congress with the use of executive orders.
This threat, is given weight by the fact that an initial 800 employees of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were abruptly fired at the end of February 2025 on the grounds of “cutting costs”, the fact that they were “probationary” employees being disingenuously used to suggest they somehow weren’t qualified to work at the agency. Currently, it appears that a further 1,000 positions at the agency still hang in the balance.
Nor does the threat to NOAA end there. The Trump budget proposal recommends cutting NOAA’s comparatively tiny US $7 billion budget by 25%. Specifically – and unsurprisingly – chief among the agency’s work targeted by the cuts is anything related to climate studies. In fact, in this area, the proposed cuts are closer to 75%, effectively ending all of NOAA’s research into climate change and weather (and no, the two are not the same).
GOES – Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite – is a network of geostationary satellites jointly operated by NASA / NOAA for weather monitoring. Development of their next generation replacements could be put at risk as a result of proposed government budget cuts. Credit: NOAA / NASA
Although the administration has stated the National Weather Service will “not be touched”, both the layoffs in February and the proposed cuts could have potentially far-reaching impacts in that service’s capabilities. NOAA, in collaboration with NASA, currently operates three large Geostationary satellites for both weather forecasting and for gathering data on climate (called GOES). All three of the current units (only two of which are operational) are scheduled for replacement between 2032 and 2035. However, the Trump administration is also looking to end many joint ventures between NASA and NOAA. This, coupled with the proposed budget cuts means development of the replacement satellites could be impacted in the near future.
Further, by conflating “weather observations” with “climate change”, the administration has already severely impacted NOAA’s ability to carry out vital research into the development and operation of climate interactions that give rise to weather phenomena such as hurricanes.
NOAA was already stretched thin and understaffed. It’s going to go from stretched thin to decimated. NOAA provides most of the raw data and the models that predict hurricanes, and the hurricane forecasts many Americans see on their phones or TVs are created by the agency. Reducing the research and observation capabilities of the agency in this regard could regress hurricane forecasting capability by the equivalent of decades.
– Dr. Andrew Hazelton, former member of NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division.
All this comes at a time when the evidence for human activity being the single greatest release of greenhouse gasses into the environment, and thus the primary driver of climate change over and above any natural shifts in climate, are becoming more and more evident. As such, threats to Earth science budgets like those currently being proposed by the US administration, together with their headlong rush to increase US reliance on fossil fuels represents a further threat to our collective well-being.
Crew Dragon Freedom splashes down off the Florida coast March 18th to conclude the Crew-9 mission. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
On Tuesday, March, 18th, 2025, A SpaceX Crew Dragon – mission Crew-9 – made a safe splashdown off the Florida coast prior to being successfully brought aboard the waiting recovery vehicle. This brought to an end what has been perhaps the most mis-reported human space mission thus far.
This is because the vehicle which carried NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams into space back in June 2024 was the much-troubled Boeing CST-100 Starliner. Whilst the vehicle reached orbit successfully, it suffered further problems with it primary propulsion system – located on the vehicle’s expendable service module. As a result, and exercising an understandable over-abundance of caution, NASA opted to leave Wilmore and Williams on the ISS until an alternate means of bringing them home could be scheduled.
However, at no time did this ever mean Williams and Wilmore were “stranded” on the ISS: just because NASA did not want to bring the astronauts back to Earth in an emergency did not ever equate to the agency being unable to do so. This was proven in July 2024 when, following the disintegration of a Russian satellite led to a short-term threat of possible debris impact with the ISS. As a result the station’s crew were ordered by NASA and Roscosmos to “shelter in place” aboard their respective space vehicles – including Wilmore and Williams aboard the CST-100 – in case an emergency departure and return to Earth was required if the debris could showed signs of intersecting the ISS in orbit.
Sunita “Sunni” Williams (l) and Barry “Butch” Wilmore (r), pose aboard the docked Crew Dragon Freedom shortly after it arrived in September 2024, bringing Aleksandr Gorbunov and Nick Hick (sandwiched respectively between Williams and Wilmore) to the ISS. Credit: NASA
In fact, one of the reasons Starliner remained at the ISS even after the decision had been made to return Williams and Wilmore to Earth via other means was as much about providing them with a “lifeboat” return to Earth for as long as possible, as it was about carrying out further tests on the vehicle.
As it was, Starliner did eventually undock from the ISS in September 2024 ahead of the launch of the Crew 9 mission, with the crew capsule Calypso successfully landing on Earth at the end of a fully automated flight and despite two further system hiccups. Meanwhile, the Crew-9 mission also arrived at the ISS in September 2024 to become NASA Expedition 72, with Williams and Wilmore slotting into the two Expedition 72 crew slots vacated for them, in order to see out the mission’s 170-day rotation on the station.
The rotation came to an end on Tuesday, March 18th, 2025 when Crew 9 – Williams and Wilmore together with mission commander Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov undocked from the ISS at 0505 UTC, their places having been taken by the Crew 10 / Expedition 73 crew, who arrived at the ISS two days previously.
A composite image showing astronauts Butch Wilmore (l) and Suni Williams (second from right), with Aleksandr Gorbunov (second from left) and Nick Hague being greeted by fellow astronauts and family members at Ellington Field, Houston after their flight from Florida. Credit: NASA
And while much has been made of Williams and Wilmore’s extended stay on the ISS, overall, the 286 days they spent on the station is not exactly record-breaking or that unusual. Among NASA’s astronauts, five others have spent longer periods of time on a single ISS crew rotation (even if their time was planned from the outset to be so), whilst four cosmonauts have spent in excess of 330 days each (437 in the case of Valeri Polyakov) on either the Soviet / Russian Mir station or the ISS. That said, Williams has now accumulated the second highest number of continuous days in space by a US astronaut – 608 days – slotting in behind Peggy Whitson who accumulated 675 days in space with NASA and a further 9 days as a private citizen astronaut on the Axiom Ax-2 mission.
What of Starliner?
Whilst Wilmore and Williams may not have been stranded in space, the Starliner programme does have issues, notably with the design of the four propulsion pods – dubbed “doghouses” because of their appearance – mounted on the Starliner’s service module, and which have yet to be fully resolved.
The CST-100 Starliner comprising the capsule Calypso and its service module slowly back away from the ISS following undocking in September 2024. Two of the problematic “doghouse” thruster pods are visible on the cylinder of the service module. Credit: NASA
The pods, each of which mounts five “large” orbital manoeuvring and control (OMAC) thrusters as a “primary” means of propulsion and seven smaller reaction control system (RCS) thrusters used for very precise manoeuvring and control, have been something of a bane to Starliner for the last several years. During preparations for the second uncrewed flight of the CST-100 system (itself the result of an embarrassing cock-up in integrating the timing systems between the launch vehicle and the Starliner craft in the first orbital test flight), it was found that a large number of the values within the thrusters had jammed, delaying the launch by several months, only for a number of the thrusters to have issues during the flight.
During the first Crew Test Flight with Williams and Wilmore, no fewer than five of the RCS thrusters failed during initial docking attempts at the ISS, although four were brought back on-line and the docking completed. This failure, coupled with the discovery that the issue was related to overheating within the “doghouse” units which had not been picked up during the development and testing of the units, then led to something of an embarrassing public spat between Boeing, as the main vehicle contractor, and Aerojet Rocketdyne, makers of the propulsion units, prior to NASA banging some heads together.
Since then, work on rectifying the propulsion unit issues has continued in near-silence. However, the return of the two astronauts to Earth inevitably caused some of the spotlight to swing back towards Boeing and Starliner and if / when / whether it night fly again. There is little doubt that NASA does want Starliner to continue: having all of their eggs in the Crew Dragon / Falcon 9 basket is far from ideal despite that successes of those systems thus far. This was something noted by Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Programme Manager, following the Crew 9 splashdown.
We really need to get Boeing into a crewed rotation. Butch and Suni’s return on Dragon, to me, shows how important it is to have two different crew transportation systems, the importance of Starliner and the redundancy that we’re building into human spaceflight for our low Earth orbit economy.
– Steve Stich, NASA Commercial Crew Programme Manager
The Boeing CST-100 Starliner: A: Crew capsule (reusable) 1: Nosecone protecting the docking system during launch (expended) 2: Parachute cover (ejected during landing) 3: Crew access hatch 4: capsule RCS thrusters (x25) 5: Airbags (x6) 6: Heat shield (ejected during landing) 7: NASA Docking System port 8: Parachutes (x3) 9: Window (x3) B: Service module (expended) 10: Power umbilical connecting the command and service modules 11: Radiators (x4) 12: “Doghouse” thruster pods (x4) 13: Propellant tanks 14: Roll control thruster on “Doghouse” 15: Launch abort motors (x4) 16: Solar panels. Credit: NASA
While progress has been made on mitigating the overheating issue by means of changing the operating parameters of the thrusters software system so as to avoid the need for any excessive redesign of the “doghouse” systems, these changes will need to be tested at some point through an actual flight test – and the same is true of the more minor, but still required, alterations to the helium purge systems within the propulsion systems. This raises another issue: should such a test be carried out via a crewed or uncrewed mission.
The final decision on this lies with NASA, although in their rare comments on the work, Boeing has been somewhat bullish, pushing for the flight to be crewed. For its part, the space agency will not be drawn on what form any additional test flight should take – only that the vehicle used should be “mission ready”, with Boeing in a position to rapidly pivot from completion of a test flight to flying a full crew rotation afterwards.
Even if we were to fly the vehicle without a crew in the return, we want that to be crew-capable. So, we want it to have all the systems in place that that we could fly a crew with. What we’d like to do is that one flight and then get into a crew rotation flight. So, the next flight up would really test all the changes we’re making to the vehicle, and then the next fight beyond that, we really need to get Boeing into a crew rotation. So, that’s the strategy.
– Steve Stich, NASA Commercial Crew Programme Manager
As to when any such flight might take place remains an open-ended question. NASA continues to signal it would like at least the test flight to occur in 2025, but the overall mission schedule for the ISS this year – crew rotation flights, resupply missions (including the demonstration flight of the Dream Chaser resupply vehicle) – mean that docking opportunities for any Starliner test flight are not that numerous in the near-to-medium term.
Blue Ghost says “Night-night” with Stunning Images
In my previous Space Sunday update, I wrote about the private Blue Ghost lander by Firefly Aerospace, which successfully touched-down on the Moon on March 2nd, 2025, marking the company as the first to carry out a “fully successful” (e.g. without rolling or toppling over) commercial lunar landing.
The Earth as captured by Blue Ghost from the surface of the Moon. Credit: Firefly Aerospace / NASA
Over the next lunar daylight period (14 terrestrial days), the vehicle carried out its assigned surface science work, with only the drill system – called LISTER (for Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity rather than having any reference to a character from Red Dwarf) failing to operate as hoped, only reaching a depth of around 1 metre than the hoped-for 3 metres.
However, on Sunday, March 16th, the lander went quiet as the lunar night took hold, denying it the sunlight it needed to convert into electrical power and heat, and temperatures plummeted.
The “diamond ring” is a famous feature of solar eclipses seen from Earth. However, its one is the result of the Earth eclipsing the Sun, as seen from the Moon. Credit: Firefly Aerospace / NASA
While there is a chance residual energy stored in the lander’s batteries might be sufficient to keep its essential electronics functioning, the Firefly team are not expecting to be able to re-establish contact when daylight returns on the vehicle in April.
Rather than simply bid farewell to their plucky little lander, however, on March 18th, Firefly Aerospace, via NASA – the mission being part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme – released some images captured during the mission to highlight its success. Taken in high definition, they are regarded as some of the best ever taken from the surface of the Moon, and I’ve reproduced some of them here for your appreciation.
As the Sun sets against the lunar horizon, its reflected light turn Earth into another “star” as seen from Blue Ghost, as Venus also appears a bright dot above and to the right of the Sun. Credit: Firefly Aerospace / NASA
Discovering Biosigns on Other Worlds Just Go Easier. Sort-of
So far, we’ve discovered in excess of 4,000 planets orbiting stars beyond our own, and while many are unlikely to support life of any kind, much less life as we know it, there are equally many that just might. The trick is actually recognising the fact they do across the vast interstellar distances involved.
Thus far, the common technique used to try to determine whether or not an exoplanet might harbour life is to look for biosignatures – the by-products of life processes – when analysing the composition of its atmosphere. However, there are a number of problems with this approach, including the fact that many biological interactions can be similarly produced through purely abiotic means such as inorganic chemical reactions, and determining one from the other over interstellar distances in next to impossible.
Might the study of hycean worlds help determine the presence of life beyond our own solar system?
To combat this, researchers from University of California, Riverside, have suggested that astronomers looking for potential signs of life examine the atmospheres of potentially habitable worlds for concentrations of methyl halides. These are gases combining a methyl group with a halogen atom – and they are only produced via organic means by anything from bacteria through to plants. Ergo, if they can be detected in the atmosphere of a planet, they would potentially point to some form of organic process at work on that world.
Clever, right? Well, yes, but there is a hitch. Even here on Earth, atmospheric concentrations of methyl halide are low and prone to being broken-up and “lost” within the general atmospheric “noise”, thus making them hard to detect – and this would likely be true for many potentially life-bearing worlds orbiting other stars. Fortunately, the researchers have an answered for that: look for methyl halides in the atmospheres of hycean worlds.
These are planets which have been shown to have hydrogen-rich atmospheres and are believed to have liquid water surfaces (“hycean” being a portmanteau of “hydrogen” and “ocean”). Generally, speaking, these worlds exist within the “Goldilocks zone” around their parent star: the region wherein all the “right” conditions come together to potentially give life the “kick start” it needs. Further, such are their general atmospheric composition and character, they could support far higher – and more detectable – concentrations of methyl halides.
In this, the researchers are supported by the fact that one biosignature appears to have been detected within the atmosphere of an exoplanet – dimethyl sulphide. This was reported as being discovered within the atmosphere of K2-18b, a hycean world, in 2023. And even while the overall number of hycean worlds thus far discovered is small, finding traces of methyl halides in the atmosphere of just one would be ground-breaking news.
Might the study of the water vapours ejected by Enceladus (seen here in false colour to highlight its surface structure) and Europa reveal the presence of methyl halides?
Another potential area where the detection of methyl halides might work is in the study of the water vapours expelled from the likes of Europa and Enceladus in our own solar system. Both of these moons give off plumes of water vapour through geysers, which in the case of Enceladus, is sufficient to actually help renew the otherwise unstable E- ring around Saturn. Were methyl halides to be found within these vapours (assuming they could survive in the tumult), it could dramatically increase the potential for one of these moons to be harbouring microbial life in its waters.
Space debris: defunct satellites, rocket stages, launch vehicle elements like payload fairings, complete or fragmented, has increasingly cluttered the space around Earth since the birth of the space age and now poses multiple threats. Credit: ESA
I’ve written about the issues of orbital space debris several times in these pages. It is estimated that there are 150 million pieces of space junk surrounding Earth. The vast majority of this debris is too small to be readily detected – minute pieces smaller than a centimetre; still large enough to do mischief to a satellite or other orbital vehicle, particularly if a cloud of them happen to strike – but of no significant threat to those of us on Earth or flying through the sky.
However, there are between 25,857 and 56,450 large object orbiting the Earth; of these, between 10,000 and 12,500 are operational satellites (the numbers vary based on the collective orbital regions studied), and the rest defunct satellites, rocket stages, payload fairing and other debris large enough to pose a range of issues. These present a range of problems, some of which are obvious, others perhaps less so.
For example, satellites and rocket stages in low-Earth orbit (LEO) can be directed to re-enter the atmosphere so that any parts surviving re-entry “safely” fall into the Pacific Ocean at “Point Nemo” (officially called the oceanic pole of inaccessibility), the furthest point from land in any ocean or sea, and a place 400 km from the nearest air or marine route. However, as “safe” as this is, as I recently noted – they result in an increase in high-altitude pollutants such as aluminium oxides that is on the increase (as I noted in that article, SpaceX’s Starlink is now responsible for some 40% of debris burning-up in the upper atmosphere and creating up to 5 tonnes of (mostly) aluminium oxide dumped in the mesosphere and stratosphere per day).
The Japanese ispace Hakuto-R 2 lunar lander mission, launched on January 15th, 2025, captured this image of Earth on January 31st, 2025. It is looking directly down on Point Nemo – the “spacecraft graveyard”. Credit: ispace
There are others who are less considerate in what happens to their satellites and the expended stages of their rockets. Russia, for example, has a habit of taking pot-shots at its own satellites, blowing them up (and thus increasing the amount of fast-moving debris and adding to the general confusion, whilst China just tends to leave rocket stages to make an uncontrolled re-entry which, whilst pointing in the general direction of Point Nemo, could equally result in debris striking populated areas.
Even SpaceX has been a little cavalier; three of their service modules – or “Trunks” – from Crew Dragon missions have survived re-entry to come down near populated areas. The first was largely glossed over (it fell on Australia); the next two came down in America – one within a glamping centre, the other actually striking a house in Florida (fortunately without loss of life or injury). These two were enough to persuade NASA and SpaceX to move Crew Dragon splashdowns from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, so the vehicles would not be re-entering the atmosphere over the continental United States.
A piece of debris linked to the Crew-7 Dragon trunk that landed within a glamping site in North Carolina in May 2024. Credit: Future/Brett Tingley
However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Not only is there a vast amount of debris occupying the various orbital planes – low Earth orbit (LEO), medium Earth orbit (MEO), Geostationary orbit (GEO), Sun synchronous orbit (SSO) – over the years all of the smaller debris previously mentioned has come to be spread more broadly around the Earth and across different altitudes. And the amount of potential junk we’re casually lobbing up in the form of smallsats viewed as “no bother” as even in an uncontrolled re-entry at the end of their useful life, they will completely burn up, together with the rocket stages used to get them there, is now accelerating. In 2024, for example, there were 263 launches world-wide, most of them delivering multiple satellites to various orbits and leaving upper stages in what are called “superspreader orbits” – orbit beyond those occupied by satellites, so as to minimise collision risks between them. Taken together, all of this increases the risk of collisions – and not just between a couple of objects; there is a very real risk of one or more collisions leading to an event referenced under the term Kessler syndrome.
Also called collisional cascading, the Kessler syndrome envisages a single collision between two fast-moving orbital objects generating debris which goes on to strike other orbital objects, shattering them, causing more debris, and so on through a cascading set of collisions that could destroy entire networks of satellites – and orbital facilities like space stations together with orbiting crewed space vehicles. If you’ve seen the 2013 film Gravity starring and Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, you’ll have seen a visualisation of a Kessler syndrome event.
Kessler syndrome is particularly relevant to the crowded domain of low Earth orbit which is currently getting packed out thanks to the arrival of megaconstellations such as Starlink (currently 7,000 active and inactive, with a plan for 12,000 potentially rising to 40,000 in both LEO and MEO, together with China’s planned 14,000 strong Qianfan (“Thousand Sails”). Because of these and the overall increase of commercial activities in LEO, the risk of a Kessler syndrome event occurring is seen as being on the rise – as is its potential range of impact (no pun intended).
A 2023 axonometric view of Earth showing the space debris situation in different kinds of orbits around Earth. Credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi
In particular, a study conducted by a team from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and published in Scientific Reports noted that a widespread collisional cascade could result in multiple large-scale debris elements entering the atmosphere to rain down fragments across wides areas, not only putting lives on the ground at risk but also causing potential disruptions to air travel and airspace closures, even when there is no direct threat to people on the ground.
In this latter regard, the report additionally notes that even without a Kessler syndrome event, particularly busy concentrations of air routes – like southern Europe, the Mediterranean Sea and Middle East; the Caribbean and Central America; south-east Asia through the Philippines and around the South China Sea – now have a 1 in 4 risk of suffering significant disruption as a result of orbital debris falling through them, and this could rise to 1 in 3 in the next few years (although the chances of an individual aircraft actually being struck by debris will remain around 1 in 430,000).
The report also notes that this potential for disruption is not limited to just space debris re-entering the atmosphere; the increasing number of launches around the world could see something of an increase in vehicle losses at high altitudes during ascent, also causing short-term airspace restrictions and aircraft diversions. In this, the report references the loss of the Starship vehicle during the January 16th, 2025 IFT-7 sub-orbital flight by SpaceX. The vehicle in question exploded at an attitude of 124 km, with wreckage falling over the airspace of the Caribbean and Greater Antilles, resulting in aircraft being diverted and airspace being temporary restricted to avoid the risk of aircraft passing through clouds of small debris which could be ingested by their engines with unwanted results. Also, and as a by-the-by, this mishap resulted in 85.5 tonnes of pollutants in the form of metal oxides and nitrogen oxides oxides dumped into the upper atmosphere – that’s 1/3 of the annual levels of such pollutants dumped on us from meteorites burning up in the atmosphere.
A video captured from an airliner flying over the Greater Antilles showing the break-up of the SpaceX Starship on January 16th, 2025
All of which underlines the fact that whilst space companies point towards their use of more environmentally-friendly propellants for the launch vehicles – notably with the move away from using kerosene – this is actually a very small step in tackling increasingly complex problems resulting from spaceflight.
Boeing Warn of SLS Layoffs
Following my last piece concerning NASA Project Artemis and – particularly – the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion crew vehicle – Boeing has formally notified employees working on the SLS programme that there could be lay-offs coming.
To align with revisions to the Artemis program and cost expectations, today we informed our Space Launch Systems team of the potential for approximately 400 fewer positions by April 2025. This will require 60-day notices of involuntary layoff be issued to impacted employees in coming weeks, in accordance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
– Boeing Statement in the possible layoffs notification
SLS Core stage engine sections, 2022. Artemis 3 (l) being fitted with its four RS-25 motors; Artemis 4 (r) awaiting the same. Credit: NASA
The notification is seen as evidence that the Trump administration is moving towards an immediate cancellation of SLS – and possibly Orion. However, the wording of the Boeing statement might indicate otherwise. The company and its partners in Artemis, Lockheed-Martin and ULA have been under pressure from NASA to reduce costs, and have agreed to do so. With the SLS production line maturing the notification might by in line with that goal, Boeing having the confidence they can reduce the SLS workforce without impacting the programme. As it is, the vehicles – both SLS and Orion – due to be used in the next three Artemis missions (2 through 4) are already well advanced:
The Artemis 2 SLS is being stacked at Kennedy Space Centre, and the Orion vehicle for that mission is awaiting final testing.
Construction of the core stages for the SLS vehicles to be used with Artemis 3 and Artemis 4 have been under construction in parallel by Boeing at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, and work has commenced on the Artemis 5 rocket’s core stage.
The Orion vehicles for Artemis 3 and Artemis 4 are at Kennedy space centre, undergoing assembly and integration.
The European Service Module (ESM) for Artemis 3 was shipped to Kennedy Space Centre from Germany in August / September 2024 while the ESM for Artemis 4 is currently under construction in Bremen, Germany.
However, if the Boeing notice has been issued over concerns about cancellation, then as I pointed out last time out, it would likely only serve to severely delay Artemis, because there just isn’t anything available to readily replace SLS or SLS + Orion. Also, there is an argument to be made that whilst Artemis in its current form with the fully expendable SLS is unsustainable, continuing with it for the time being might actually help move the programme towards any SLS replacement without the need to completely disrupt the entire Artemis programme.
Right now, only Artemis mission 2 through 5 are funded to any degree; 6 through 10 have yet to receive serious budget allocations – although this will have to start soon. As such, it would seem to make more sense to continue with Artemis 2 preparations and the development of the Artemis 3-5 flight hardware whilst redirecting funds that would otherwise go into the vehicles required for Artemis 6 onwards into the development of a more cost-effective architecture, such as modifications to New Glenn and the Orion launch Abort System to allow the one to launch the other, and the development of a means for Orion to dock with ULA’s Centaur upper stage whilst on-orbit (required to get Orion to cislunar space, New Glenn being unable to do so on its own).
February 2023: Artemis 2 Orion (r) during system integration work; Artemis 3 Orion (l) on a work stand and Artemis 4 Orion pressure module (c). Credit: NASA
Such an approach would both allow Artemis to meet current goals – and even provide a buffer if mission dates have to again slip – whilst the alternate hardware is modified, tested, rated, and called for flight. Thus, by the time Artemis 6 rolls around, the new architecture could be ready to make its debut in place of SLS, and no significant ground has been lost in moving Artemis forward. Additionally, the specific use of New Glenn / Centaur would both fit with the current Lunar Gateway architecture (possibly the one thing NASA really should abandon but likely won’t) and avoid the need to cancel and squander Orion.
However, this is pure conjecture. Whether the Boeing notification was issued in expectation of SLS cancellation or not, is something that is likely to become clear within the next month or two.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 