NASA shakes up moon program with new test mission before astronaut lunar landing

By Joey Roulette

WASHINGTON, Feb 27 (Reuters) - NASA added a new mission to its Artemis moon program involving a spacecraft docking test in Earth's ‌orbit before landing its first astronauts on the moon in over half ‌a century, overhauling the flagship U.S. moon effort amid competitive pressure from China.

The new Artemis mission, planned ​for 2027, is one of many moon program changes the U.S. space agency announced on Friday as China inches closer to its own 2030 crewed moon landing goal, and U.S. safety experts warn more testing is needed before NASA makes its crewed ‌attempt to land on the ⁠moon, now planned as Artemis IV in 2028.

NASA also canceled an effort to upgrade its Space Launch System rocket to instead focus ⁠on increasing that rocket's production and flight rate, which has been slow relative to newer rockets. The move impacts Boeing's roughly $2 billion contract to build a more powerful ​SLS upper ​stage, current plans for which have been ​canceled.

Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' ‌Blue Origin are each developing an astronaut lunar lander for the program, dueling to be the first to achieve the moon landing for NASA. Boeing and Northrop Grumman build SLS, which carries the Lockheed Martin-built Orion astronaut capsule that will taxi the astronauts to one of the lunar landers in space before landing on ‌the moon.

The new mission allows more practice for ​NASA before its more ambitious step of landing ​on the moon, which had long ​been planned for Artemis III. The agency launched an uncrewed ‌test of SLS and Orion in 2022 ​and is targeting an ​April launch of Artemis II, taking four astronauts around the moon and back.

The updated Artemis III mission will involve Orion, with astronauts aboard, demonstrating ​its ability to dock with ‌one or both of the lunar landers in low-Earth orbit. The process ​is a crucial juncture in the agency's path to the moon.

(Reporting ​by Joey Roulette, editing by Deepa Babington)