Once back from the surface of the moon, Starship will lack the fuel needed to fly back to Earth. "Perhaps gloves or some other small parts might come back," added Greeley. So it wouldn't surprise me if we had a conversation at some point as to what might be possible." "But this is several years from now and those kinds of things do come up. "That is the current thought process," said Suffredini. "The spacesuits will go back on Starship and then Starship will remain in orbit indefinitely," said Greeley.Īt least that is the plan for the two Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (A圎MU) spacesuits used on the Artemis III mission as of Wednesday. Due to weight constraints, only the small stash of moon rocks they bring back from the moon and perhaps some low mass equipment will be transferred to Orion for the trip home. Once at the moon, two of the crew members will transfer over to the human landing system, a version of SpaceX's Starship spacecraft, while the other two stay in lunar orbit aboard Orion.Īt the end of the mission's surface operations, the two Artemis moonwalkers - including the first woman to land on the moon - will liftoff on Starship and then rendezvous with Orion to return to Earth. Four Artemis III astronauts will depart Earth aboard the Lockheed Martin-built Orion capsule. NASA's approach to achieving the first lunar landing in more than 50 years differs from the last time it went with Apollo, in that the crew launches separately from the moon lander and then they rendezvous in lunar orbit. "They will go up on Starship and then the crew will transfer over from Orion to Starship to go down to the lunar surface," Greeley told collectSPACE, referring to how the two garments would first get to the moon. Axiom president and CEO Michael Suffredini and Mark Greeley, the company's program manager for extravehicular activity, spoke about the fate of the Artemis III spacesuits in a brief interview. You can track the spacecraft's location by following its official Twitter account, which frequently posts about its latest distance from Earth and from the Moon.- The history-making spacesuits worn by the first woman and next American astronaut to walk on the moon will be abandoned on a SpaceX lunar lander rather than be returned to Earth for their reuse or museum display.Īxiom Space, the Houston-based space services company selected by NASA to design, build and furnish the spacesuits for the 2025 Artemis III lunar landing mission, unveiled a prototype of its lunar garb during a press event at Space Center Houston on Wednesday (March 15). NASA's Artemis 4 mission, which will take four more astronauts to the Moon, will take flight in 2027 at the earliest.įor now, we're still waiting for updates on the Orion vehicle after the successful Artemis 1 launch on November 16th. Based on his statement, NASA is anticipating delays related to the development of the human landing system and its next generation spacesuits. However, NASA Inspector General Paul Martin admitted in August that the agency is expecting Artemis 3's launch date to slip to 2026. The company's Starship lunar lander is expected to take astronauts to the Moon for the first time in 2025. SpaceX's original contract with NASA was worth $2.9 billion, but this modification will add $1.15 billion to the total.
"The aim of this new work under Option B is to develop and demonstrate a Starship lunar lander that meets NASA's sustaining requirements for missions beyond Artemis III, including docking with Gateway, accommodating four crew members, and delivering more mass to the surface."
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