| | | | | | | | | | | Axios Space | | By Miriam Kramer · May 23, 2023 | | Thanks for reading Axios Space. At 1,261 words, this newsletter is a 5-minute read. - Please send your tips, questions and budgetary constraints to miriam.kramer@axios.com, or if you received this as an email, just hit reply.
| | | | | | 1 big thing: The politics of NASA's return to the Moon |  | | | Illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios | | | | NASA's flagship program to get people back to the Moon is at risk in the debate over the country's budget. Why it matters: The Artemis program has survived two presidential administrations and has bipartisan support in Congress. - Both administrations have worked to reduce the political risk of the multibillion-dollar program, awarding multiple contracts to commercial companies in multiple states and partnering with international space agencies.
What's happening: Efforts to insulate Artemis from possible cuts, delays and cancellation are facing a major test with the current budget fight on Capitol Hill. - If NASA's funding is stalled at the 2022 enacted level or reduced, agency administrator Bill Nelson has warned Artemis II and Artemis III could be delayed. The current launch dates are 2024 for Artemis II and 2025 for Artemis III.
- Nelson also said in a March letter to Congress that NASA would need to make deep cuts to other parts of the program, potentially canceling contracts.
- "How is Artemis going to survive this kind of active budget slashing?" the Planetary Society's Casey Dreier tells Axios. He says the program's survival hinges on lawmakers on both sides of the aisle working to preserve it.
Flashback: Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator under former President Trump, worked to insulate the Artemis program from political whims when it was announced in 2019 by partnering with commercial companies and international partners early. - "When we left, we had an international coalition. We had apolitical, bipartisan support. We had a program that sustained," Bridenstine told Axios in April at the National Space Symposium.
The big picture: All of NASA's partnerships with private companies and international agencies — a Canadian crew member will fly around the Moon for Artemis II and the European Space Agency is a major partner for the Gateway station — make for a complex program. - Instead of a relatively simple mission structure like Apollo — which used the Saturn V rocket and one type of lander to send each crew directly to the lunar surface — Artemis makes use of multiple redundant systems and sprawling partnerships.
- But those points of connection and inter-reliance have created a program that can potentially last.
- "Getting to the Moon is really freaking hard," Dreier said, adding that even if the mission plans look a little patchwork, that could actually benefit NASA when it comes to creating a sustainable program.
|     | | | | | | 2. How to land on the Moon |  Data: Axios Research; Chart: Tory Lysik/Axios Visuals NASA is relying on two major companies — Blue Origin and SpaceX — to build landers that will bring their astronauts back to the surface of the Moon for the first time in 50 years. Why it matters: These public-private partnerships now form the backbone of the space agency's future in space, and the success of these private companies is vital to NASA's work. - "We have big goals for our Artemis program — about a mission a year to the lunar surface for stays for our astronauts [of] up to 30 days," Nelson said last week.
What's happening: NASA's announcement last week that Blue Origin was chosen to provide a lander to bring astronauts to the Moon as early as 2029 as part of Artemis V is illuminating how exactly the program will come together in the coming years. - Blue Origin — with the help of its partners — is planning to launch multiple test missions to space before sending an uncrewed test flight to the Moon about a year before Artemis V.
- NASA has contracted SpaceX for the first two Artemis landings on the Moon — Artemis III and Artemis IV.
How it works: For Artemis III, SpaceX is expected to send a modified Starship that will act as a Moon lander to lunar orbit, where an Orion capsule — launched to space by NASA's Space Launch System rocket — carrying four astronauts will meet up with it. - That Starship will bring two of those astronauts — including the first woman to land on the Moon — down to the surface.
- From there, the lander will bring the crew back to Orion and the four astronauts will continue on back to Earth.
- For Artemis V, Blue Origin will launch its lander to the small Gateway station expected to be built in lunar orbit. NASA's Orion will deliver astronauts to the Gateway who will then transfer to the lander and take a weeklong trip to land at the south pole of the Moon.
Yes, but: Both Blue Origin and SpaceX have a long way to go before they're ready to fly anyone to the lunar surface. - SpaceX experienced mixed success during its first attempt at a round-the-world Starship flight when the vehicle successfully cleared the pad but failed a few minutes into its test.
- NASA has awarded contracts for elements of the Gateway, but the small space station hasn't yet been built, and there are no elements currently ready in lunar orbit.
| | | | | | | | 3. A volcano-covered planet |  | | | Artist's illustration of the volcanic planet. Image: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (KRBwyle) | | | | A planet slightly more massive than Earth and located 90 light-years away could be covered with volcanoes. Why it matters: Understanding and cataloging the variety of worlds in star systems far from our own could put our own cosmic home in context. Driving the news: The planet — named LP 791-18 d — could be as volcanically active as Io, a moon of Jupiter thought to be the most volcanic place in our solar system, according to a study in Nature last week. - "LP 791-18 d is tidally locked, which means the same side constantly faces its star," Björn Benneke, an astronomy professor at Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets and an author of the study, said in a statement.
- "The day side would probably be too hot for liquid water to exist on the surface," Benneke said. "But the amount of volcanic activity we suspect occurs all over the planet could sustain an atmosphere, which may allow water to condense on the night side."
- LP 791-18 d and the massive planet LP 791-18 c pass close to each other during each orbit they make around their star. LP 791-18 c tugs on LP 791-18 d, making its orbit more elliptical and deforming the world, creating friction that heats it up internally and causes the volcanic activity.
What's next: Scientists are already planning to use the James Webb Space Telescope to observe LP 791-18 c, and it's possible that LP 791-18 d could be a good candidate for observation in the future as well. | | | | | | | | A message from Axios | | Help a friend get smarter, faster | | |  | | | | Have you gotten smarter, faster reading Axios Space? Share the newsletter you know and love and win free Axios swag! It just may be your friend or family member's new favorite daily habit. They just don't know it, yet. Tell a friend today. | | | | | | 4. Out of this world reading list |  | | | The Pinwheel Galaxy in a 2006 photo. Image: NASA/ESA/JHU/University of Hawaii/NASA JPL-Caltech/NOAO/University of Illinois Urbana/STScI | | | | 🕳 Six gravitational-wave breakthroughs scientists can't wait to see (Imre Bartos, Zsuzsa Márka, Szabolcs Márka, Scientific American) 🌟 Bright supernova blazes in M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy (Bob King, Sky & Telescope) 🚀 Former NASA astronaut, three paying customers dock with space station (Jackie Wattles, CNN) 🛰 DARPA picks Umbra to demonstrate radar imaging techniques (Sandra Erwin, SpaceNews) | | | | | | | | 5. ☀️ Weekly dose of awe: Zooming in on a sunspot |  | | | Image: NSF/AURA/NSO | | | | The Sun is equal parts terrifying and awe-inspiring. Our nearest star powers life on Earth, but with one extreme, powerful flare, it could knock out power grids and bring our way of life grinding to a halt. - This image — recently released by the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope — shows the complex, smaller structures inside of a sunspot.
- "Within the dark, central area of the sunspot's umbra, small-scale bright dots, known as umbral dots, are seen," the National Solar Observatory wrote in a caption. "The elongated structures surrounding the umbra are visible as bright-headed strands known as penumbral filaments."
- Sunspots can give rise to solar storms, sending bursts of magnetically charged plasma through the solar system, impacting planets.
| | | | | | | | A message from Axios | | Help a friend get smarter, faster | | | | | | | | Have you gotten smarter, faster reading Axios Space? Share the newsletter you know and love and win free Axios swag! It just may be your friend or family member's new favorite daily habit. They just don't know it, yet. Tell a friend today. | | | | 🌙 Big thanks to Alison Snyder for editing, Sheryl Miller for copy editing, Tory Lysik and Natalie Peeples for the graphic and the illustration respectively. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, subscribe. |  | | Are you a fan of this email format? Your essential communications — to staff, clients and other stakeholders — can have the same style. Axios HQ, a powerful platform, will help you do it. | | | | | | Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters.
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