Artemis Stuff

[Yazata]

NASA just held an Artemis press conference, in which outgoing NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced that due to ongoing concerns about the Orion heat shield (see posts above) Artemis II (the crewed loop around the Moon without landing) is being pushed back to April 2026, with Artemis III (the crewed lunar landing) no earlier than the middle of 2027.

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Eric Berger says that it's good that NASA admitted that Artemis II won't fly next year. What they didn't say is that whenever it does fly, it probably won't be atop an SLS rocket.

https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/186473685575894236

[Yazata]

Boeing is the prime contractor for NASA's huge Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

And Eric Berger is reporting that today (Friday February 7, 2025) David Dutcher, Boeing Program Manager for SLS held an all-hands meeting of ever 800 employees warning them that SLS might be cancelled in March and if it is, to expect mass layoffs. The meeting only lasted six minutes, appeared to be scripted, and Dutcher took no questions.

Berger notes that federal labor law requires companies with more than 100 employees to give those employees 60 days notice in the case of mass layoffs or plant closures. This appears to be that.

It's starting to look grim for SLS.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/bo...contracts/

[Yazata]

Artemis II is officially NET (no earlier than) February 5, 2026. This one will carry four astronauts (one is Christina, another is Canadian, eh?) around the Moon, for the first time since 1972.

And yes, they will be atop an SLS.

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[Yazata]

Lockheed says this:

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