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It was widely anticipated that the 2024 target, which was four years earlier than originally planned, would be unattainable given that a new rocket, capsule, lunar lander and other components have yet to be developed and fully tested.
But Jurczyk’s comments on Tuesday mark the space agency’s first public recognition that the aggressive schedule, announced by former Vice President Mike Pence in 2019, is in jeopardy.
A major obstacle is simply the financing of a project whose final cost is estimated at 30 billion dollars.
Congress allocated more than $ 23 billion to NASA in the FY2021 spending omnibus bill. This included roughly $ 850 million to start buying a lunar lander, well below the $ 3.3 billion. dollars requested by NASA.
NASA’s Inspector General also released a report in November that ranked astronauts landing on the moon by 2024 as the main challenge facing the agency. And another IG report also released that month revealed that the Gateway, a small moon-orbiting habitat designed to facilitate lunar missions, likely won’t be ready by 2024.
Jurczyk, who worked at NASA for three decades before being asked to lead the agency until President Joe Biden appoints a permanent director, said the agency is now awaiting comments from the Office of Management. and the White House budget on NASA’s fiscal proposal for fiscal year 2022, which was designed under the Trump administration.
This will provide an early indication of the intentions of the new administration for the space agency and help determine if the lunar target is still possible.
NASA officials are also considering proposals from space companies to build a landing system to bring humans to the lunar surface.
Jurczyk said NASA could then assess the level of funding it would need to meet the 2024 deadline or, if that was too ambitious, as early as possible to send astronauts to the moon safely.
Under the current plan, Artemis I, unmanned, would launch in 2021, followed by Artemis II, which would fly astronauts beyond the moon in 2023. Artemis III, currently scheduled for 2024, would land a crew on the moon .
The Trump administration has sought to make the deadline a reality, although many in the space community have said it is technically not possible and Democrats criticized it as a political ploy fitting in with the end of Trump’s second term if he were re-elected.
As late as December, former NASA chief Jim Bridenstine was unwilling to back down on the 2024 target. But he also acknowledged that without adequate funding, the Artemis program should “go back to the drawing board”.
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