Safety panel has “great concern” about NASA plans to test Moon mission software

Enlarge / Teams at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility move the Core Stage toward a barge in January that will carry it to a test stand in Mississippi. (credit: NASA)

An independent panel that assesses the safety of NASA activities has raised serious questions about the space agency's plan to test flight software for its Moon missions.

During a Thursday meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, one of its members, former NASA Flight Director Paul Hill, outlined the panel's concerns after speaking with managers for NASA's first three Artemis missions. This includes a test flight of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft for Artemis I, and then human flights on the Artemis II and III missions.

Hill said the safety panel was apprehensive about the lack of "end-to-end" testing of the software and hardware used during these missions, from launch through landing. Such comprehensive testing ensures that the flight software is compatible across different vehicles and in a number of different environments, including the turbulence of launch and maneuvers in space.

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