I think the altair lander or something like it (Dynetics HLS) should have been an option for the HLS. Doesn't need a crazy amount of refueling missions for one trip and already had design development pre-artemis, with design guidance from Gene Cernan and Neil Armstrong.

Starship is so over complicated and overkill.

I don't think they need to reinvent the wheel, just make something that works and gets people down and back. Starship is best suited for cargo not people.

Curious on what everyone else thinks?

I want to ask if this community has any predictions, particularly someone smarter than myself.

NASA will provide an update on its plans to return American astronauts to the surface of the Moon by 2028 at 2 p.m. EDT, Friday, Oct. 23, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida: https://www.nasa.gov/live

Participants in the briefing include:

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman
NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya
Jeremy Parsons, NASA’s Artemis program manager

The update will include details about NASA’s Artemis III mission that will send four astronauts to low Earth orbit next year to test critical systems needed for future lunar landings, and how plans to return American astronauts to the Moon by 2028 are progressing.

U.S. media interested in attending in person must apply online by 12 p.m., Friday, Oct. 16. To ask questions remotely, media must request the dial-in number from the Kennedy newsroom no later than one hour prior to the start of the update by emailing: [ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov](mailto:ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov). NASA’s media accreditation policy is online. 

As part of a Golden Age of innovation and exploration, NASA will send Artemis astronauts on increasingly difficult missions near the lunar South Pole to explore more of the Moon than ever before. In addition to providing economic benefits and advancing scientific discovery through its Moon missions, NASA will establish an enduring human presence on the lunar surface and build on the agency’s foundation for the first crewed mission to Mars.

Learn more about Artemis: https://www.nasa.gov/artemis

-end-

Back in September, I shared my 80m/px lunar classification maps here. Your incredible feedback, technical insights, and even the tough challenges from some users motivated me as a student to push this work to a much deeper level.

I’ve spent the last few weeks processing NASA PDS data (LRO/LOLA DEM) to focus entirely on Shackleton Crater at a stunning 5m/px resolution.

The complete analysis—including annual solar radiation averages, seasonal solstices, slope safety zones, and a viewshed simulation for communication towers—will be fully unveiled on November 16th!

Stay tuned! 🚀🌕

NASA Wants More Than 70 Moon Landings in the Next Decade—But How?

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with him, but I figured people would want to hear the other side.

I mentioned this in my last post about this saga, but it's nice to see more details going public. The page is here, but I've included a screenshot in case it's taken down.

The money quote:

Lead a multi-disciplinary engineering team delivering capabilities for the SLS-specific Centaur Upper Stage. As an Agile Product Owner and engineering technical lead, you will drive product vision, technical integration, and iterative delivery for the new 180k Centaur Upper Stage [emphasis mine] integrated with NASA’s Space Launch System. Each Product Owner is accountable for leading their team(s) to deliver value and achieve program objectives.

Assuming that "180k" is propellant load, that's a 50% stretch.

This is the playlist with the presentations of the recent Lunar Science Workshop about Artemis II.

Below the video in the description are the links to all the so far released data from NASA regarding the Artemis II mission

Everyone can freely download the data there from the official NASA links, nothing needed.

Just thought i put this here to share if anoyne is interested

After jadebenn's post yesterday, I am SUPER perplexed about what an Artemis IV landing looks like. Forget about when, I just want to understand the concept at this point.

What I THOUGHT we were doing was to send an HLS up on a SpaceX vehicle, gas it up in orbit, launch an Orion on an SLS, dock in LEO, and then make a TLI burn to go to the moon.

But now "extended Centaur"? And this impacts EUS?? And that means modifications to the mobile launcher???

I don't understand why we need an ICPS, EUS, or a Centaur if the HLS vehicle has the juice for the TLI burn. What am I missing here?

I have tried researching this independently and I am an avid reader of all this, but frankly at this point I feel like I need a NASA Artemis Program tracker tracker to track which tracker we are now tracking.

I accept it will probably change again, but what is the no-kidding concept for Artemis IV today?

Rams 24 — 20 Eagles

Image credit: NASA

I'm tired of dancing around this, so I'm just going to put all my cards on the table.

/u/rookisaacman alluded to this in his leaked email to the workforce. Specifically, here:

So if that means preserving an ICPS option while driving Centaur V in parallel, we will do so. If it means having ML‑1 pad modification hardware ready to move immediately after Artemis III launches, we will do that too.

The newest version I've heard is that this is almost completely ruled out now. They're going to have to start ML-1 mods right after Artemis III, so they can't fly it on Artemis IV.

Why are ML-1 mods necessary? Because of the kick stage and stretched Centaur. The kick stage is a bit fuzzy, but the current idea seems to be essentially a stripped-down ESM. I tried to hint at this with a post here a few days ago... but honestly, fuck subtlety. A kick stage to allow Orion insertion into LLO is the plan right now.

The stretched Centaur (official-ish name is "Exploration Centaur") is something I've covered here before, but I'm just going to outright say that the purpose of the stretch is to handle the kick stage. Again, I tried to be coy about it, but fuck it. Let me bring the transparency Administrator Isaacman promised.

Some of you more tuned into the history here might be a bit confused. Isn't this exactly the kind of mission EUS could handle? Wasn't ML-2 commissioned precisely because NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel said the modifications to ML-1 for a new upper stage would take far too long (33 months estimated)? How does Administrator Isaacman plan to have all this hardware ready on a faster timeline than EUS and ML-2, which were projecting 2028/2029?

Your guess is as good as mine. The engineers just didn't believe hard enough back then, I guess. 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, those of you still doubting me can have that "mid-October" Artemis announcement to look forward to. For the rest of you, I want you to keep in mind that the coming flight gap is entirely one man's fault... and that once they start tearing into ML-1, it will not be possible to launch any Artemis missions until they are done. Including if they encounter any more serious, unforeseen difficulties.