After 50 years NASA is one step closer to bringing humans back to the moon
Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for Orion, NASA’s new deep space crew capsule, has completed work for the agency's Artemis II mission which will send four astronauts to the moon and back as early as 2026.
Orion is said to be the most advanced deep space vehicle ever made and has been under development for several years.
Paul Anderson, deputy program Manager for Orion at Lockheed Martin, said the delivery of the spacecraft to NASA is a major milestone for both Lockheed Martin and for the agency, considering that it will carry astronauts back to the moon for the first time since 1972.
“We’ve had a very, very robust space program over the last 50 years,” Anderson said. But for him, this is a flagship mission for him and his team which has been motivating the work they do. “But you know, just the majesty of going back to the moon, what that means for the United States, for this nation, and really for this world.”
It’s an enormous task, said Anderson, and with a vehicle heading to the harsh environment of deep space, there are always challenges that they can expect to have to navigate.
Development of the vehicle was marked by two milestone test missions: Exploration Flight Test-1 in December of 2024 and Artemis I in November 2022. These test flights helped provide guidance and greater understanding of what this upcoming mission may look like – and the problems they may face.
“We did a heat shield test, that was probably one of the biggest challenges in getting to Artemis I, but also one of the biggest successes,” Anderson said. “We learned how to do what’s called skip re-entry… and proved that the crew will have the ability to safely re-enter from a lunar trajectory and do so safely.”
To prepare for future missions, including Artemis III and the first landing on the moon for the program, Anderson said the Artemis II crew plan to do a series of demonstrations en route to the moon to learn more about Orion and further understand how the crew interacts with it.
While the capsule is sending four humans to the moon and back, Anderson said it took thousands of people to prepare for this milestone journey in human space exploration.
“Whether you’re a member of NASA, whether you’re a member of Lockheed or any of the contractors, it is a passion for this mission,” Anderson said. “I mean this is a uniting. We so badly need things that unite both our nation and the world. That level of passion and that level of desire and you know, really, what it means to humanity is what we bring to work every day.”
Voyager thrusters fixed after two decades
Since 2004, NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, over 15 billion miles away in interstellar space, have operated with broken thrusters – until now.
For several years it has been a difficult challenge for engineers to overcome, but the team was finally able to revive the thrusters after discovering it was an electronic issue.
Failure of the thrusters was initially caused by failed heaters. It was important to fix the thrusters now because there was a scheduled communication blackout.
Kareem Badaruddin, Voyager mission manager, said for most spacecraft this wouldn’t be a big deal, but because of the antenna’s high power, fixing these thrusters now was crucial.
“In the case of Voyager, the 70-meter in Australia the only one that has the high power as band transmitter so that we can send instructions to either of the spacecraft,” said Badaruddin. “And the reason for that is Australia is the only Deep Space Network antenna that can see Voyager too… we cannot command the Voyager spacecraft.”
Time on that antenna was slated to supporting NASA’s upcoming Artemis mission and would be unavailable to the Voyager team. If they failed to fix the thrusters soon, the ability to point at Earth and communicate with the spacecraft would have been lost -- forever.
“As long as the thrusters are working, this communication is pretty simple,” said Badaruddin. “If the thrusters fail, then the spacecraft can no longer point at Earth, and we can no longer communicate with it.”
With the fix, the Voyager’s exploration of the edge of our solar system continues. The mission has almost reached 50 years and has become a part of space history. Badaruddin explains how important this data is to scientists.
“I'm not sure that we're going to send spacecraft out there again. And so, every bit of data that we return from this space is precious,” said Badaruddin. “You know, one day this mission, both spacecraft, will stop. But the spacecraft are in orbit around the center of our galaxy, and they will continue in orbit forever.”
