NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and Dr. Glaze outline Artemis II’s April delay due to helium leaks in the SLS rocket, requiring VAB repairs. To cut gaps from three years to under 10 months, NASA aims for a standardized "block one" SLS fleet and expands its civil servant workforce—currently 25% of total—to restore Apollo-era efficiency. Artemis III shifts to a 2027 LEO rendezvous with landers, testing critical systems before potential 2028 moon landings, while avoiding risks like Apollo’s rushed steps. Recent funding from the Work Now Working Family Tax Cut Act supports acceleration, but past budget cuts slowed progress, underscoring Artemis’ pivot toward sustainability and Mars prep under renewed urgency. [Automatically generated summary]
up every day, he's got basically an empathy problem.
First he called it a hoax and he's oh it's you know things are good.
Well he needs to say look things are getting better.
My administration is getting up every single day laser focused on making progress on all these issues that you care about and then he has to back that up with events that the media can do nothing but report on right where he has workers in the White House he has these things when he's talking about other things when he's when he's doing talking about taking over Greenland took up like 10 days worth of media coverage, right?
The media reports on that and people are like, what does that have to do with the price of eggs or beef at the store?
So I think it's a messaging problem and it's also a perception problem.
He has to change perceptions about where the economy is.
That's a tough thing to do.
Tom Bevin, co-founder and president of Real Clear Politics, go to realclepolitics.com for more.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
All right.
Happening now, we'll join in progress.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman leads an update on the Artemis II program, sending four asterisks on a flight around the far side of the moon.
Artemis II was scheduled to lift off in March, but due to rocket problems will instead launch in early April.
Live coverage here on C-SPAN.
Are you getting close to it?
So we've got issues with low flight rate.
And I would say a great way to exasperate that problem further is to start making changes to vehicle configuration.
SLS is a very impressive vehicle.
We don't want to turn every one of them into a work of art.
And then I would also say that having very big objectives, a wide objective gap between missions is also not a pathway to success.
So we didn't go right to Apollo 11.
We had a whole Mercury program, Gemini, Apollo, lots of Apollo missions before we ultimately landed.
Right now, our program is essentially set up with an Apollo 8 and then going right to the moon.
That is, again, not a pathway to success.
So what is the right way forward here?
So first, today we're announcing a standardization of the SLS fleet to what we'll call essentially a near-block one configuration.
So the idea is we want to reduce complexity to the greatest extent possible.
We want to accelerate manufacturing, pull in the hardware, and increase launch rate, which obviously has a direct safety consideration to it as well.
You get into a good rhythm, launching great frequency, you get that muscle memory.
In order to do that, we need to rebuild and strengthen the workforce here at NASA.
Now, this is directly in line with a workforce directive that I released several weeks ago.
We have to rebuild core competencies.
The ability to turn around our launch pads and launch with frequency greater than every three years is imperative.
Now, some people ask me questions on that already as we've talked about this.
And it's like, how are we going to do that?
How are we going to go from three years to something significantly less to what I think should actually be inside of one year?
And I'll point you to our history.
We have a nice infographic that's coming out from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, through the shuttle program.
I don't think it would surprise many of the folks in the room that our average launch cadence was closer to three months throughout all those programs, not three years.
In fact, if you want a history tidbit, you look at the time when Apollo 7 splashed down to when Apollo 8 launched, you're approximately two months apart.
We need to start getting back to basics and moving in this direction.
So rebuilding the civil servant workforce and restoring core capabilities.
Again, that will directly contribute to NASA's launch cadence, where we're going to endeavor to get our launches inside of a year, specifically down to potentially 10 months.
And then we are going to add missions.
In fact, we're essentially going to pull in Artemis III to launch in 2027 with a revised mission profile.
So instead of going directly to a lunar landing, we will endeavor to rendezvous in low Earth orbit with one or both of our lunar landers, test out integrated operations between Orion and the landers, ECLIS systems, even to the extent possible, if we can get development components of our X EVA suits to test out vehicle interfaces, even just getting an astronaut in a suit, microgravity, we can learn a lot with the idea that we should be learning.
and take this information back to inform hardware development, whether it's in the landers or in the suits before Artemis IV, where we will attempt to land on the moon.
We are also, as a component of the strategy, endeavoring to preserve up to two landing attempts in 2028.
So if we get inside of the 10-month turnaround time that we would like to see, Artemis II will launch on its historic mission in the weeks ahead.
Artemis III will have its opportunity if we can by mid-2027, which sets us up for an early 28 and a late 28 opportunity.
So that is the approach that we are taking at a very high level.
I will tell you, we're not surprising our industry or our stakeholders at this press conference right now.
We've been having these discussions for a long time.
In fact, I give a lot of credit to NASA and its team.
You know, no one at NASA forgot their history books.
They knew how to do this.
They've had plans like this for a long time.
Now we're putting it in action.
We had a chance to have these discussions across all of our industry partners, all of the prime contractors on the SLS vehicle, both of our HLS landing providers.
Everybody agrees this is the only way forward.
And I'll say had similar conversations with all our stakeholders in Congress, and they're fully behind NASA in this approach.
They know this is how NASA changed the world, and this is how NASA is going to do it again.
With that, I'll hand it over to Ahmed.
Thank you, sir.
Let's see.
The path forward that the administrator laid out, I think, is pretty clear.
It reduces risk.
It strengthens our ability to execute these missions and the campaign ahead of us.
It reflects the adjustments that we need to keep our schedule credible and our teams focus on what matters most, which is safe and achievable missions.
And also, I think it's important that we talk a little bit about the Artemis II crew.
This is for them also.
When they get on top of that rocket, they need to know that they're doing it as part of a step, as part of a plan that's going to work.
They have said many times they're doing this mission so that their teammates can walk on the moon.
They need to know that they're going to get on top of that rocket so that we, and we're going to give them a plan for the rest of the team that's going to be assigned that's going to go do this work to actually get to the moon.
So our update today reinforces that commitment to them.
And when we ask them to take that risk, when we take that risk together, that they're doing it for a reason.
So we're going to build that program grounded in safety, incremental learnings, technical excellence, and long-term sustainability.
So I think it's, you know, our commitment to flight readiness, this is not about slowing down momentum.
This is about increasing it, about making sure that we are focused on the right things in terms of how we execute the program.
We need to get back to doing the workforce initiative that the administrator has directed us to implement is the absolute key ingredient to this.
We need to get our teams working side by side with our partners outside and get this work done.
So it's challenging, it's ambitious, but with this course correction, we are on a more stable foundation, a more realistic path to the milestones we have ahead.
And we are so grateful to the teams across the NASA centers, across all of industry that's helping us.
We have the entire force of American industry now helping us with the Artemis campaign.
We are grateful to them for their support.
They have been relentless in driving progress, and we need them to be even more relentless to achieve these missions.
And this plan that we're laying out today makes that possible.
So with that, I'll hand it over to Dr. Glaze to talk about Artemis II.
Thank you, Alec.
I'd like to start by thanking the administrator for taking this incredibly bold step and moving quickly to assure that we have support and resources that are needed in order to launch Artemis astronauts to the moon every year.
I want to thank our team as well within the Moon to Mars program on Artemis and all of our Artemis mission planning.
Our teams continue to work tirelessly to enable mission success.
I know to people outside of NASA, sometimes we make it look easy.
What we are doing is anything but easy, and we've seen that with the challenges that we've encountered.
I've said time and time again that our team rises to challenges and they meet any bar that is set.
This will be a challenge, and I know that we will continue to relentlessly pursue excellence at every step.
And that includes not just our NASA team, but includes, again, our contractor workforce and all of the suppliers that contribute at every level to the success of the Artemis space program.
So first things first, I'm going to talk about Artemis II.
Preparations for Rollback00:03:29
We were here just a week ago.
We were all very excited last Friday after the successful wet dress rehearsal.
We were in a great place at that time and looking at a launch in early March.
Things changed pretty quickly last Friday evening where we discovered the issue with the flow of helium to the ICPS, the upper stage of the SLS.
That occurred as we were doing the reconfiguration of the SLS as we transitioned from the wet dress into the launch configuration.
So that was it was disappointing, but that's where we were.
And the response of our team was exactly what we should be doing.
We allowed the data to talk to us and tell us what we needed to do.
And allowed those findings, the operational findings, to guide us in what decisions that we needed to make.
And the data were pretty clear that we were no-go.
We were in a no-go situation without the ability to flow the helium to the RL-10 engines of the upper stage.
So while we have the ability to access the boosters and the core stage out at the pad, we were in preparations already for being able to do the work that needed to be done out at the pad, we do not have the ability to access the interior of the upper stage at the pad.
So that's what's the requirement to roll back to the vehicle assembly building.
Our team has been working very quickly to transition from preparations for launch to preparations for rollback.
And they did that extremely quickly.
We were able to roll back within a couple of days.
At the same time, the team has worked to streamline a plan for the work inside the VAB to give us the very best possible chance at a launch in the early April launch period.
We got back to the VAB about 8 p.m. Wednesday night.
The platforms within the VAB have already been extended.
You can see them there in the live graphic.
And the work has already begun, an incredible amount of work already going on.
The suspected system components for the helium flow will be removed and they're going to go undergo detailed inspections and assess the cause of the issue.
We hope to get down to the root cause of that and make changes not just to the hardware but to our operational procedures so that we don't encounter the same issue again when we roll back out to the pad.
In addition to determining the cause of the helium flow issue, the teams are also going to do a number of other things while we're in the VAB.
We will replace the batteries in the flight termination system and conduct another end-to-end test to meet the Eastern Range safety requirements.
We'll give the closeout crew another shot, another chance at closing out the Orion capsule, get them a little bit more practice in closing out the Orion crew module.
And then also the seal on the tail surface mast umbilical that supplies the liquid oxygen to the rocket before liftoff.
That is also going to be replaced to ensure a tight configuration.
As you recall, of course, the twin seal that supplies that goes to the liquid hydrogen was replaced out at the pad.
So we've already replaced that one, so now we're going to replace the oxygen seal as well.
And at the same time, we're also going to be reviewing the items that are already stowed in the Orion crew module.
There's some of those time out, and we need to replace them, so we'll be doing a little bit of that as well.
We will continue to provide updates, regular updates of how we're progressing within the VAB and our plans once they solidify and when we roll back out, we will definitely let everybody know.
And just again, to return to Administrator Isaacman's statements beyond Artemis II, I know that our team is up for this challenge.
NASA's Moon Mission Prep00:15:18
We are ready, and we are ready to get started on that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We'll now take your questions.
Please ask one question at a time so that we can get it to as many of you as possible.
We'll circle back if we have time.
We'll start with a question here in the room, but if you're joining us via the phone bridge, please press star one to enter the queue.
I'll take our first question.
Will hi, thanks.
Will Robinson-Smith with Spaceflight Now.
Thank you all for taking the time this morning.
To the administrator or associate administrator, the plan for the revamped Artemis III to rendezvous with one or both of the HLS providers, can you speak to the importance of that component of doing Artemis III in low Earth orbit?
And I guess how soon given where both of those HLS vehicles are, how feasible that might be to dock with them as opposed to just sort of rendezvousing and getting in proximity with them in low Earth orbit?
Thank you.
So I'll begin and welcome Ahmed's additional inputs on this.
I think one of the challenges, but also one of the greatest opportunities that comes from both our HLS providers is the ability to return America to the moon, not just again for the flag and the rocks, but to be able to actually build out that enduring presence.
So what they're taking on is technically very challenging, but a lot of that involves, whether it's on-orbit prop transfer or rapid reusability because it necessitates lots of launches, we don't find ourselves in that situation for a low-Earth orbit rendezvous.
So this is an opportunity to test out the vehicle we know they're capable of doing is not as much the technical process.
The most demanding process is how to get that vehicle to the moon.
So it's a perfect opportunity for us to test the interface out between Orion and that vehicle to actually get humans in the vehicle, start looking at the eclipse systems.
This is all going to help take down risk for a subsequent landing.
Yeah, I think for Artemis II, we're doing on-orbit handling of the vehicle to test out rendezvous techniques.
A low-Earth orbit rendezvous is a bit more challenging than a LEO rendezvous just because the external environment, the external torques are different.
But as the administrator said, I mean, this was in the plan.
We have to be able to mate with these vehicles.
We have to talk.
We have to ingress.
We have to do those things anyway.
But the point of the sequence is to really recognize the production risk in the enterprise and the development risk.
The production risk is the flight rate on the Earth ascent systems, SLS Orion.
The development risk is prop transfer.
So the way to burn a common target there, if you will, is to conduct a mission that accepts those risks as real, but still make as much progress as we can, but to challenge both the production side and the development side at the same time.
Take our next question.
Yes.
Thanks.
Irene Klotz with Aviation Week.
For anyone who wants to take this, does the revised Artemis III architecture require or would you like for any of the HLSs to demonstrate the on-orbit refueling component or does that fall off for Artemis IV?
And for Artemis IV, if you're looking to fly in early-ish 2028 and you need a new upper stage, presumably it still logs in LH, what's available on that short notice?
Yeah, I think, you know, first, we're not going to get into any specific manufacturer's name or the associated contracting process.
Beyond that, as I mentioned, we've been discussing with industry this strategy for several weeks right now.
Everyone acknowledges it's the right path forward.
So we obviously have confidence in our ability to source and integrate a more standardized second stage to fulfill missions beyond Artemis III.
In terms of our HLS providers, they've both, I think, very publicly submitted proposals for their acceleration strategy that does take down some of the technical risk associated with the proposal.
And we've said publicly that we support both in this regard.
I don't think that what you're referring to, like on-orbit prop transfer, is necessarily going to be required for the demonstration that we are imagining for Artemis III.
But we haven't fully, you know, we are very early in mission design here.
We all have arrived at the point that this is really the only pathway in order to achieve success with a lunar landing within the timeframes that we are targeting.
But I think part of the reason to do this in low Earth orbit is it does not necessarily require what both HLS providers will eventually necessitate, which is either lots of launches or on-orbit prop transfer to get their vehicles to the moon.
The next question from over here.
Thank you.
Ken Kramer, space up close.
I think this is fantastic what you've proposed here.
It's exactly what's needed.
So can you talk about these landers a little bit?
They're going to, I would, I guess, have to be vastly simplified from what was proposed with those prop transfers in order to accomplish this so quickly.
I know they're working on updates.
Can you let us know at all, and where does the gateway fit in all this?
Thanks.
To be clear, both HLS providers have offered solutions to accelerate their plans without compromising on the grander objective, which is we need to build out an enduring presence so when we return to the moon, we have the capability to stay.
So while their proposals, again, do take down some of the technical risks that would have existed before, we are not foregoing the capabilities that I think are absolutely necessary for America's future in space.
So to be clear on that point specifically.
And the gateway?
I think at this point, we really want to focus The meeting to the greatest extent.
Because to be honest, this can be somewhat of the problem.
The hardest thing right now is returning American astronauts to the surface of the moon.
We obviously haven't done that in more than 53 years.
I think by focusing a lot of time, energy, and resources across lots of grand endeavors is why you wind up in a situation where you're launching an incredibly important but complex vehicle every three plus years.
So I say that not to make a statement towards Gateway because we are doing this to get back to the moon and have the capability to stay.
Certainly to build a moon base, which is going to be ideal, which can be an ideal learning environment for us to test out the operations, in-situ resource manufacturing, refining, all the capabilities that are going to be necessary for the next giant leap to Mars and beyond.
But I say with focus for this conference specifically, we've got to keep the attention on standardization and flight rate as our path to get back to the moon.
Our next question will come from Marcia Dunn with the Associated Press.
Marcia Dunn Isaacman, how much did the recent problems with Artemis II, especially mimicking Artemis 1, how much did that play into your decision to shake up the Artemis mission profile?
And how disappointing are you to have to wait perhaps even longer to land astronauts on the moon?
Thanks.
Well, first, I'm not disappointed at all.
I'm excited because I think we have a path here to actually get the job done within the timeframes that we have targeted right now.
I also just want to point out that this is something that NASA has known.
As I mentioned before, no one here at NASA forgot their history books.
The plans to do this the right way have existed for a long time.
We're in a fortunate position right now where you have a presidential national space policy which aligns whole of government on what's necessary.
You have congressional support through appropriation.
And you have President Trump's one big beautiful bill, the Work Now Working Family Tax Cut Act, that gave us the plus-up and resources within our exploration budget to undertake this endeavor right now.
So I would tell you that we would have been delivering this exact same message to you today had this been FRR.
That was the plan.
But I think we have to put even more urgency around it because this is not the FRR that we initially intended.
You know, the American public deserves the update on Artemis II and the historic mission that's ahead, but you also have to know how we're going to achieve the vision that presidents have called for for more than 35 years.
Our next question will come from Josh Dinner with Space.com.
Hi, thanks so much for doing this, Josh DinnerSpace.com.
For Administrator Isaacman, you're standardizing SLS, pushing toward a 10-month launch cadence and revising Artemis III to an on-orbit rendezvous next year with up to two 2028 landings, which all sounds kind of fairly accelerated for a deceleration of the program.
What specific risk are you buying down with that LEO rendezvous?
And are you anticipating demonstrations with multiple HLS vehicles on that mission?
And how are you ensuring that schedule itself doesn't erode margins?
The safety advisory panel has already warned our thin for Artemis III.
Yeah, so actually, I think what we're doing is directly in line with what ASAP asked us to do.
I mean, look, just zooming out here, I think it should be incredibly obvious.
You don't go from one uncrewed launch of Orion and SLS, wait three years, go around the moon, wait three years, and land on it.
That's what our ASAP committee took issue with.
That's what we've acknowledged inside the leadership of NASA.
NASA has been working on these plans knowing this is not the right approach.
There has to be a better way in line with our history on it.
Again, we did not just jump right to Apollo 11.
We did it through Mercury, Gemini, and lots of Apollo missions with launch cadence every three months.
We shouldn't be comfortable with the current cadence.
We should be getting back to basics and doing what we know works.
So, how are we going to buy down risk on it?
I would certainly much rather have the astronauts testing out the ECLAS systems, the integrated systems of the lander and Orion in low Earth orbit than on the moon.
Like them to get in the suits for the first time, even inside the vehicles, doesn't necessarily have to be an EVA before they actually walk on the moon in them.
So, everything about this mission, and even though it's beyond conceptual, we've obviously coordinated with our partners on this, but the full mission design and objectives will be revealed shortly.
I'll just say it's certainly in the direction of buying down risk before we put our astronauts on the surface.
And our next question will come from Richard Trabue with the Orlando Sentinel.
Hi, thanks.
Calling for the car, so hopefully you can hear me well.
About the increase in workforce, the civilian workforce, what does that mean for like personnel at Exploration Ground Systems or specifically Kennedy Space Center or the agency overall?
And is there a concern about the flow of hardware from Orion or SLS?
Potentially, are you going to have an Orion capsule for a potential Artemis 5 in 2028 at this pace?
Thank you.
I'll kind of work backwards from there.
As I mentioned before, we're not here today to surprise industry and our stakeholders.
We've been having these conversations for weeks now.
I've spoken to the leadership at every one of the prime contractors that contributed into the SLS program.
Everyone's behind us, and they've all said the exact same thing.
This is the only way to get the job done.
So, there's a lot of work we have to do here at NASA to prepare.
Part of that goes to the second component of your question, which is we've got to rebuild our core competencies.
Now, is this mean the overall workforce count increases at KSC?
I don't know the answer to that specifically.
I would say that there is a lot of contractors which do fantastic work that should be civil servants.
That's kind of the heart of the workforce directive right now.
75% of our workforce right now is contractors.
I think a lot of them should be civil servants.
I think we should have those capabilities in-house.
You know, we should have the ability to make changes and adjustments as we see fit because we are NASA.
We did all this the first time.
We know an awful lot.
And this is going to be our kind of pathway back to the moon.
So, lots of collaboration with industry.
They understand what the ask is.
They know we're going to need to pull in hardware.
That's why we're standardizing the configuration.
You're not going to be able to do that if every rocket is a work of art.
You're going to inevitably learn the same lessons and over again.
So, standardize, increase production, pull everything in, which allows you then to increase your launch rate.
And yes, we need to rebuild a lot of our workforce here to bring them in as civil servants and get back that muscle memory to turn the pad in less than a year because we've done it before and we can do it again.
And our next question will come from Eben Brown with Fox News.
Hi, good morning.
Thanks for doing this.
I think this question is probably best for the administrator.
When President Trump first announced the Artemis project back in 2017, he wanted to see a lunar landing by 2024.
That was obviously not missed.
This, despite perhaps being an integration of better practices, does once again push that goal a little further into the future.
The president hasn't said much about this really at all, I don't think, but what's the overall attitude coming out of the administration here?
I mean, are they happy with this, not happy with this, or how does the agency itself react to that pressure that may or may not be there coming from the administration to keep this on track as much as possible and make sure that there aren't unnecessary slips in timelines?
So to be clear, President Trump loves space.
President Trump created the Artemis program.
We obviously resumed operational flight for our astronauts to and from space during the president's first term.
He created the Space Force.
He signed a national space policy on my first day on the job in the Oval Office that not only recommitted American astronauts to the moon, but to build out a lunar base and not only that, to start making investments in the next giant leap capabilities like nuclear power and propulsion so we can eventually have American astronauts put the stars and stripes on Mars.
I've spoken with him numerous times leading up to my second nomination for this position about our strategy, the importance of the lunar base.
He checks in with great frequency.
The Artemis II astronauts were at the State of the Union.
President Trump's Space Legacy00:01:09
I was as well.
This is a priority for the administration.
I think that there are certainly questions of why we didn't make some of these decisions like we are today in terms of standardization, increasing flight rate in the years past.
I think President Trump wants to correct that now, and he's given us all the ingredients to do it.
A national space policy, congressional funding, and the plus-up from the one big beautiful bill is what enables us to undertake this course right now of standardization and acceleration for an achievable path to get American astronauts back on the moon before the end of his term.
I know he's fully supportive.
We'll take the next question now.
In the back of the page, please.
Do you think that some of the budget cuts that we've had recently have contributed to that low flight rate?
And would you say that we have the resources and funding to increase that flight rate?
And sorry, I just have a logistics question.
So can you just clarify the Artemis III timeline here?
You mentioned mid-2027 and 2028, and I just want to clarify, are those two landing attempts?