NASA Inspector Fears New Spacesuits Won't be Ready for Moon Landing
Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:
Dud contracts, proprietary designs, and zero-experience supplier make for quite the mess:
The NASA Office of Inspector General, the aerospace agency's auditor, fears that work on next-generation spacesuits won't finish in time to use them for the planned Artemis III Moon landing mission in 2028.
In a report [PDF] published on Monday, the Inspector General points out that NASA kicked off its quest for next-gen spacesuits with 2022's Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services (xEVAS) program, which called for private suppliers to develop two suits: one to handle microgravity at the International Space Station (ISS) and another to wear on the moon.
NASA allocated $3.1 billion to the contracts and selected Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to work on the project. The latter dropped out in 2024 after deciding it couldn't hit the required deadlines.
The report says NASA's delivery dates were overly optimistic and ultimately proved unachievable" and warns that past experience of spacesuit development suggests Axiom Space won't have even demo suits ready before 2031.
That's bad because NASA's plans call for a moon landing in 2028, while the ISS will end its mission in 2030.
The Office of Inspector General blames the xEVAS contracts for the mess.
NASA's choice to use a firm-fixed-price, service-based acquisition strategy for xEVAS aligns with the Agency's strategic decision to shift the risk of cost overruns to the contractor, as well as help foster a commercial space economy," the report notes. However, in this case, the firm-fixed-price contract approach conflicted with the developmental nature of next-generation spacesuits, which carry higher levels of technical, financial, and schedule risk."
[...] NASA might have a way out of this because it can appoint new suppliers under xEVAS, and three companies - SpaceX, Genesis Engineering Solutions, and ILC Dover - are already working on suitable spacesuits.
But if Axiom Space doesn't succeed, the report warns NASA may need to revert to its current spacesuits which are much less capable than those planned for use in future, and therefore significantly adjust its lunar plans."
Those plans currently call for 2027's Artemis III to test docking in space, and for 2028's Artemis IV mission to land astronauts on the Moon.
Work on the vehicle that will make that landing is under way, with SpaceX and Blue Origin competing to win the gig. There's no guarantee either company will be ready for 2028. And as another recent Office of Inspector General report found, both designs have potential flaws.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.