Artemis Program Getting New Director as Critics Sound Alarm on Need for Organizational Coherency
As directed by congress in NASA Authorization Act of 2022, the agency is to appoint Director of Moon to Mars office, responsible for development of “an integrated master plan, integrated master schedule, and integrated risk management procedures” and reporting to Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate Administrator (T-B) Jim Free; Executive restructure comes amid stern warnings from prominent space community members to Politico, including NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel Chair Patricia Sanders and AIAA Director Daniel Dumbacher; VP Kamala Harris to discuss “new rules framework” at National Space Council meeting 9 Sep
AIAA Small Spacecraft Technical Committee honors Capstone at 36th SmallSat Conference in Utah; Partners on the <US$30M mission include Advanced Space / PI Bradley Cheetham, providing overall project management, Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (set to interface with LRO) and Ballistic Lunar Transfer / Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit trajectories; Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems (founded by Jordi Puig-Suari of Cal Poly, co-inventor of the CubeSat standard) and parent company Terran Orbital, who designed, built and operate 25kg, 12U Capstone; Stellar Exploration, manufacturer of hydrazine propulsion system; Launch provider Rocket Lab





NASA now targeting 6-22 June window for inaugural Artemis-era CAPSTONE launch to validate unique orbit around Moon, holding
2 USA commercial teams, 1 composed of Northrop Grumman, AVL, Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, Michelin (with Moon workers Harrison Schmitt and Charles Duke serving in advisory roles) and partnership between Lockheed Martin, General Motors compete for contract to build modern Lunar Terrain Vehicle; JAXA works with Nissan and Toyota on electric and hydrogen powered concepts; Researchers at Keck Institute for Space Studies (Caltech) promote utilization of off-the-shelf components from production electric automobiles to minimize R&D cost of bespoke vehicles