NASA's Inspector General projects the Artemis 1 mission will not launch until "summer 2022," while delays on the HLS program and new spacesuit development mean it will be "several years" later than expected until the agency lands astronauts on the Moon: oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-22-003…
The OIG report comes a week after NASA officially delayed Artemis III, the crewed lunar landing, to 2025:
Elon Musk says that SpaceX hopes to complete work on the Starbase launch pad and launch tower "later this month," with more tests in December and "hopefully" an orbital Starship launch attempt in January.
Musk: "In order for life become multiplanetary we'll need maybe 1000 ships or something like that."
Musk emphasizes that NASA selected Starship for the HLS program: "Because of the mass transport capabilities ... to actually have a permanently occupied base on the Moon."
NASA is hosting a Crew-3 post-launch press briefing, with:
-Assoc. admin @KathyLueders
-Commercial Crew manager Steve Stich
-ISS manager Joel Montalbano
-SpaceX director of Dragon mission management Sarah Walker
Thread:
@KathyLueders Lueders: "We had a little bit of a curveball that we had to work through and the team carefully assessed and restructured the plan and worked out the different options for Crew-2 and Crew-3."
@KathyLueders Stich says Crew Dragon Endurance is "doing really well," with the nosecone open now.
Jeff Bezos is speaking now at the Washington National Cathedral in DC, for an event titled "Our Future in Space."
Livestream:
Bezos: "I've always wanted to turn the Earth into sort of a national park or something, zoned light industry and residential, and I think most heavy industry will be done off in space."
Bezos: "I'm actually spending even more money on the Bezos Earth Fund than I'm spending on space."
"The decision by the court ... means progress for the Artemis program."
@SenBillNelson@Astro_Pam@KathyLueders@JimFree Nelson: "Before we can give a detailed look at the HLS readiness timeframe, I want to give a shout out to our legal team as well as to the Department of Justice lawyers."
Stealthy alternative rocket builder SpinLaunch conducted the successful first test flight of its one-third scale suborbital accelerator at Spaceport America in New Mexico last month.
“This is about building a company and a space launch system that is going to enter into the commercial markets with a very high cadence and launch at the lowest cost in the industry." cnbc.com/2021/11/09/spi…