They looked into the unfinished Orion capsule, which still has red “Remove Before Flight” tags, and were delighted
The crew saw the capsule during a visit to the Kennedy Space Center earlier in the week. Orion is currently undergoing acoustic testing before integration with the service module. However, NASA warned that the delays could be longer than originally planned.
NASA plans to send four people to fly around the moon at the end of next year. However, work on the capsule’s heat shield could delay the first astronaut mission to the moon in half a century. Last year, an uncrewed test flight around the Moon resulted in unexpected charring and subsequent loss of material from the heat shield at the bottom of the capsule. The heat shield is designed to protect the capsule from overheating when entering the earth’s atmosphere.
The astronauts were shown the capsule on which they will go around the moon in 2024
The next mission of the Artemis program – landing on the moon – has faced even greater difficulties and may be postponed from the end of 2025 to 2026. The main problem remains the SpaceX Starship rocket, which is supposed to deliver two NASA astronauts to the south pole of the moon. With just one Starship test flight that ended in an explosion just minutes after liftoff in April, NASA is worried about whether SpaceX can get the rocket ready in time. Starship will have to make several orbital flights, implement a method of refueling in Earth orbit and not complete a rehearsal for landing on the moon.
Jim Free, head of NASA’s Exploratory Systems Engineering Division, said the agency needs to have a clearer picture of where things are going this fall.
