NASA plans to use private rockets for its first Orion lunar mission

On Wednesday morning, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine appeared before the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation to discuss how to secure American leadership in space. He took advantage of his appearance to make, at least for the aerospace community, a shocking announcement about the first, often delayed, launch of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its Orion crew capsule.

"SLS is struggling to meet its schedule," he said. "We now understand better the difficulty of this project and it will take a little more time.I want to be very clear.I think we, as an agency, must respect our commitment.If we tell you, at of others, that we are going to launch in June 2020 around the Moon, I think we should do it around the Moon in June 2020. And I think that this can be done.We should consider, as & # 39; 39, agency, all options to achieve this goal. "

And with this commentary, Bridenstine has opened the door to launching the Mission-1 Exploration – which will not carry any crew but will test Orion in a deep space environment for three weeks – on commercial rockets.

"It's the glory of the United States of America," said Bridenstine. "We currently have amazing capabilities that we can use directly to achieve this goal."

The mission would work something like this. A heavy-bore rocket would launch Orion and its service module into low Earth orbit. Another rocket would launch into orbit a fully powered upper stage, which would then be moored at Orion. This upper tier would provide the propulsion needed to push Orion out of the low Earth orbit and inject it into lunar orbit.

Rockets not named

Bridenstine did not name rockets to the study, but two rockets manufactured in the United States could likely achieve this: the United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy booster and SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket. Requests for comments addressed to the two companies were not immediately returned Wednesday morning.

The Orion probe does not currently have the capability to land in low Earth orbit with a higher stage, and this is something that NASA should develop. Bridenstine said that a study had been launched to review this mission profile and that he hoped to get the results in "several weeks". The study will assess the feasibility of meeting the launch deadline, in-orbit mooring and June 2020 costs.

In truth, it is a remarkable development. For almost ten years, NASA has emphasized the primacy of the SLS rocket in its exploration projects. It was the "spine" that would bring humans back into deep space.

Bridenstine was careful to reiterate Wednesday that NASA remains committed to the SLS rocket for its long-term exploration plans. But the reality is that if NASA can conduct its first exploration mission on private rockets, future crewed missions could also be sent to the moon in the same way on commercial rockets. Private rockets could also launch elements of the lunar bridge and landing gear of the agency, recently acknowledged the agency.

This project will almost certainly be thwarted by Congress, which has long supported the SLS rocket with significant budgets exceeding $ 2 billion a year. But on Wednesday, Bridenstine and the White House seemed to back down, saying it was enough and that NASA could not wait forever for the big rocket to come online.

US Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Chair of the committee, seemed at least somewhat receptive after Bridenstine's remarks. "I would like us to stay on schedule," said Wicker.