Former Senator Bill Nelson, a NASA Administrator, shared his plans to send his agency to Mars in 2030 after a successful splashdown. He also gave details about Elon Musk’s SpaceX’s Starship which plans to reach the moon by 2023 as part of the Artemis program.
Numerous agency officials attended the event, including Michael Sarafin (NASA’s Artemis 1 mission manager), who shared his final thoughts about the Orion spacecraft’s performance on Earth for landing at lightning speeds.
Orion performed better during its journey from Earth to the Moon and back than NASA engineers initially anticipated. Solar panels provided more power than the spacecraft expected. NASA set additional objectives as part of the mission to test the vehicle and gain more information about its performance for future missions.
NASA will use data from Artemis for future missions, but also to make improvements to the ship.
These modifications will include hand controllers, life support systems, and displays. All of these will allow the crew to control and monitor the spacecraft. The crew spacecraft will reuse many components from the ship that just landed. These components include GPS receivers, control units, and antennas.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced that the agency will send out Mars missions by 2030, after observing Orion’s impressive performance. He said:
The goal to going to Mars was first announced by President Obama. And it was thought at the time, that it would be about 2033. But that was a dozen years ago. And now, a more realistic goal is the end of the decade of the 2030s. But a lot of this will depend on new technologies, the ability to sustain humans for a long period of time all the way.
Nelson also provided important details regarding SpaceX Starship’s lunar lander. NASA has chosen this vehicle to land humans on Moon in the Artemis program. Nelson said:
You know, you’re developing a new vehicle, a new rocket. You can expect some delays, but thus far I’m told that they are on schedule. Their plan is to do an uncrewed landing in 23, late 23, that’s a year from now! And then to do the crewed landing in late 24. So slips are always possible because, it’s a brand new system, but they have been quite impressive in what they have done with other systems
NASA will now examine data from Orion over the coming months in order to make final decisions about its performance. It plans to select the Artemis II crew in early 2023.
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