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Artemis 2 is making progress toward its lunar launch, but a recently named backup astronaut notes that there’s “always something new” to learn during development missions.
Development efforts like Artemis 2, an orbital mission scheduled for September 2025, have always prioritized safety over schedule. While it will be the first crewed flight to the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, NASA backup astronaut André Douglas told Space.com that no spaceflight is truly operational — even crewed rotational missions to the International Space Station that occur every few months.
“When you think about the thousands and millions of components in these systems, both in the spacecraft and on the ground, there’s a good chance that something is going to change. That could have consequences and could cause delays or retesting,” Douglas said.
Pointing to delays that often occur in development missions, he added: “We are pushing the boundaries of what we know and our talent. It is never, ever that simple. So I think things are always being developed.”
Related: NASA Announces Artemis 2 Moon Mission as Backup Astronaut — Andre Douglas Will Support 2025 Moon Launch
The prime crew of Artemis 2 consists of NASA Commander Reid Wiseman, NASA Pilot Victor Glover, and NASA Mission Specialist Christina Koch; Douglas is on hand to fill in for any of them if needed. The fourth crew member, astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), has a CSA backup in astronaut Jenni Gibbons.
The mission was originally scheduled to launch in December 2024, but technical issues caused a delay that was announced in January of this year. A primary concern (though not the only one) is problems with the heat shield that were identified during the last mission, Artemis 1. NASA’s Office of the Inspector General is among the agencies that investigated the issue, and the agency’s response and recovery are still ongoing.
But the heat shield is just one of thousands of items Artemis 2 is tracking, and meaningful progress has been made in recent days on other critical items. The completed core stage for the powerful Space Launch System was shipped from New Orleans en route to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, as NASA assembles the rocket for its first human launch.
Related: NASA Rolls Out Giant Artemis 2 Moon Rocket Core for Astronaut Mission (Video)
Also at KSC, Orion was just attached to its service module, the European Space Agency said. Water flow tests for the launch pad were also completed last week as part of a months-long campaign to prepare the area for a powerful launch.
Teams practiced releasing approximately 400,000 gallons of water [1.5 million liters] from large above-ground storage tanks to the mobile launcher and the platform’s flame deflector,” NASA officials wrote in an update. “The water will provide protection from the extreme heat generated by the SLS exhaust and will help suppress the noise produced during launch.”
Douglas said the challenge with spaceflight in general is that the vehicles are virtually unique, meaning engineers learn something after every spaceflight. Artemis 2 and Boeing’s Starliner, the ongoing astronaut mission to the ISS, are particularly in the “early stages” since they are new human spacecraft, he added. (That said, even mature spaceflight systems have their challenges, with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket for ISS missions grounded after malfunctioning during a satellite launch earlier this month.)
Related: SpaceX launches to ISS to be independently reviewed by NASA after rare Falcon 9 rocket failure
“I think it’s important to understand that space exploration is always at the forefront of humanity,” Douglas said. “It’s the technology that’s always evolving […] Let’s say you’re building a vehicle with some commercial off-the-shelf components, right? Or even something that’s provided by the government. That [technology] will probably be outdated, or it will change [during the mission]or something is going to happen to the subcontractor. That is the main issue when it comes down to it [missions with] Artemis, Starliner or SpaceX.”
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Douglas is well-acquainted with early development programs in space, as his resume includes serving as a senior professional staff member at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (APL). His many missions there include NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which successfully sent a moonlet around an asteroid, or space rock, in 2022.
At APL, he recalled, he spent five years in the ocean systems group, where he learned “how to build something in four to five months, send it out to sea, launch it, monitor it for a few months, bring it back and see what you did right or wrong.” He said his experience in that cycle is similar to what happens with Artemis.
“Specifically at APL, […] We weren’t just the person who drew the things that had to be built. We weren’t just the manufacturers. We took the concepts out of the head, we turned them into reality, we operated them, we retrieved them, and we built the supply chain. We did everything for the system. That gives me a unique perspective of all the stakeholders involved.”