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The next-generation spacesuits needed by the first lunar walkers in NASA’s Artemis program will not be available until 2025 at the earliest and their development will have cost more than $ 1 billion, the Inspector General’s office reported on Tuesday. the agency.
While November 2024 remains NASA’s goal of getting two flight-ready space suits, known as xEMUs, “the agency faces significant challenges,” the OIG said, including a delay of 20 months in the development and delivery of test suits, a demo version of the space station and two lunar flight suits.
“These delays – attributable to funding shortfalls, the impacts of COVID-19 and technical challenges – left no planning margin for the delivery of the two flight-ready xEMUs,” the report concludes. “Given the integration requirements, the suits would not be ready for flight until April 2025 at the earliest.”
“Additionally, by the time two flight-ready xEMUs become available, NASA will have spent more than $ 1 billion developing and assembling its next-generation space suits,” the report said.
The inspector general said space suit delays alone mean that a lunar landing in 2024, a deadline imposed by the Trump administration, “is not feasible.”
The conclusion comes after earlier reports that identified “significant delays” in other Artemis programs, including the development of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsules needed to launch astronauts to the moon.
“Additionally, delays in the development of the lunar lander… will also prevent a landing in 2024,” the OIG said.
As part of the Artemis program, NASA’s Boeing-powered SLS rocket will propel Lockheed Martin-built Orion capsules to the moon where crews will travel either with a small lunar space station, known as the Gateway, or descend directly. to the surface in a new lander under construction. by SpaceX.
The first SLS is being assembled, or “stacked,” at the Kennedy Space Center and is expected to take off for a maiden flight by the end of the year, sending an unmanned Orion capsule on an automated journey around the moon and back.
The second Artemis flight, tentatively scheduled for 2023, will send four astronauts on a test flight around the moon before the first landing attempt of the Artemis 3 mission, presumably in the 2025 timeframe or later.
NASA’s current space suits, or Extravehicular Mobility Units – EMUs – were originally designed in 1974 for use during the space shuttle program. The suits were modified in the early 1990s for use outside the International Space Station.
The stream xEMU spacesuit design the effort is aimed at replacing current suits with next-generation models that could be used on the space station, on and around the moon and, eventually, on Mars.
The new combinations offer improved mobility, flexibility and communications. They will adapt to a larger population and allow astronauts to work in a vacuum for up to nine hours. XEMUs consist of 92 components supplied by 27 different vendors.
Since 2007, the OIG has reported that NASA has spent just over $ 420 million on space suit development. To complete the development, NASA must obtain suits for testing and certification as well as a demo model that can be evaluated aboard the International Space Station.
“Going forward, the agency plans to invest an additional $ 625.2 million, bringing the total spending on design, testing, qualification, one ISS demonstration suit, two suits ready. for the flight and related support to more than $ 1 billion through fiscal year (FY) 2025, “the report says.
The OIG made four recommendations to streamline the remaining development, reduce technical risks and keep the project in phase with other elements of the Artemis program as well as with the International Space Station.
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