Artemis team leaders say major changes under Trump could mean more delays

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on Jan 30, 2025

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ORLANDO, Fla. — NASA’s commercial partners mounted a vigorous defense of the Artemis moon mission plans this week amid the specter of changes from the new Trump administration.

In a Wednesday panel discussion at the SpaceCom conference at the Orange County Convention Center, representatives from Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Amentum joined NASA officials to lay out progress toward Artemis II, the next flight in the agency’s plans to return to the moon.

“Don’t throw it all away or … we’ll be having the same discussion four years from now,” said Lockheed Martin’s Kirk Shireman.

Artemis II is targeting no later than April 2026 to fly its first crewed mission, which would launch the Lockheed Martin-built Orion spacecraft with four astronauts on board atop the Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center on a flight that will take them around, but not land on, the moon.

That mission is slated to be followed up in summer 2027 with Artemis III, which aims to return humans and the first woman, to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972 and the end of the Apollo program.

Shireman, who leads the Orion program, led the charge defending the Artemis program despite speculation Trump will push for major changes — including refocusing efforts away from returning to the moon in favor of targeting Mars.

Elon Musk, head of SpaceX and a strong Trump ally, has said he favors a Mars-focused course and has been sharply critical of the Artemis program.

“Every four years, or likely every four years, an administration changes, and there’s uncertainty,” Shireman said noting also that Lockheed leadership tells its employees the same thing it did four years ago. “The best thing we can do is keep your head down and work as hard as you can and do the things that our nation tasked us to do.”

But instead of just waiting to see what happens, Lockheed has been pushing its position as the best path forward.

“What we need to do is go tell the people in the new administration and anyone else we can talk to about is, hey, the fastest way to get humans back on the moon is to stay the course,” he said. “We all know that in this industry, you know when you stop things take a long time to build and certify, and if you throw them away every four years and start over, that’s probably the slowest and most expensive thing we could do.”

The Orion program is actually left over from the previous moon-bound NASA program Constellation — begun under President George W. Bush but killed under the Obama administration.

But costs have ballooned— with NASA’s Office of the Inspector General projecting that through 2025 NASA’s Artemis missions will have topped $93 billion. The timeline for the program originally announced in 2012 has stretched, as well.

Shireman pointed out that Trump was a supporter of the mission during his first administration, although his goal then was to get the moon landing flown by 2024. That has since been delayed by at least 21/2 years.

“This administration was involved, highly involved,” he said. “For instance, President Trump actually signed the Artemis II hatch, his signature is on there right now. So I think we need to stay the course.” .

Boeing Exploration Systems executive John Shannon, whose company is the main contractor for the SLS core stage, concurred.

“I think that’s pretty consistent for all of us,” Shannon said. “Focus on the most important thing. And the most important thing is Artemis II.”

As far as that timeline, as of late 2024 the core stage had been raised vertically at the Vehicle Assembly Building and awaits completion and mating with the two solid rocket boosters (SRBs) from Northrop Grumman. When combined it will provide the Space Launch System the 8.8 million pounds of thrust needed at liftoff. That remains the most powerful rocket to send a payload to orbit.

Stacking of the two boosters should be finished in a couple of weeks and a completed Orion spacecraft is expected to make its way to the assembly building by April or May.

A wet dress rehearsal during which the entire stack is rolled to KSC launch pad 39-B could happen this fall.

“Just putting the rocket and the spacecraft together is risky. We’re going to get through our testing, the normal plan testing, as far as other risks that are out there,” NASA Artemis II mission manager Matthew Ramsey said. “We kind of work those every day. There’s a whack-a-mole every day that we have to find problems, fix problems, and move on to the next day.”