NASA is adding spacecraft docking tests to its Artemis moon program ahead of the first astronaut landing on the moon in more than half a century.

This is part of an overhaul of the flagship US lunar project amid mounting delays and competitive pressure from China.

A new Artemis mission in Earth orbit, planned for 2027 and involving Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin lunar lander, is one of many changes to the lunar program announced by NASA Administrator and billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman on Friday local time.

It comes as China inches closer to its 2030 manned moon landing goal and as US safety experts warn that more testing is needed before NASA attempts a manned lunar landing planned as Artemis IV in 2028.

“We’ve all come to the point that this is really the only path to successfully landing on the moon within the deadline that we’re aiming for,” Isaacman told reporters Friday, stressing the need to move more quickly and minimize delays for the various spacecraft involved in the program.

As part of the updated Artemis III mission, NASA’s Orion astronaut capsule will demonstrate the ability to dock with one or both lunar landers in low Earth orbit. This process marks a critical juncture in the agency’s path to the moon.

The space agency also canceled plans to improve its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, instead focusing on improving the rocket’s production output and flight speed, which is slower than newer rockets.

The move affects Boeing’s approximately US$2 billion ($2.8 billion) contract to build a more powerful SLS upper stage, for which current plans have been scrapped.

Isaacman said these moves will allow SLS to achieve a flight rate of at least one launch per year, allowing for a mission to the moon every year, increasing the current pace of launches every two to three years.

This decision represents the most significant reorganization of NASA’s Artemis program since its inception in 2017.

The United States is seeking to establish regular lunar missions, a long-awaited follow-up to the first lunar mission in the Apollo program that ended in 1972.

Isaacman said many of the agency’s contractors, from Boeing to SpaceX, support the new goals.

Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the Orion capsule, praised the announcement.

Boeing said its employees and extensive SLS supply chain are ready to increase rocket production and flight speeds.

Second Artemis mission is struggling to launch

SpaceX and Blue Origin are each developing astronaut lunar landers for the program, vying to achieve NASA’s first moon landing. Boeing and Northrop Grumman are developing the SLS, which carries the Lockheed Martin-built Orion astronaut capsule and will taxi astronauts to one of the space’s lunar landers before landing on the moon.

This new mission will give NASA more practice ahead of the more ambitious step of a long-planned lunar landing with Artemis III. The agency aims to begin unmanned experiments with SLS and Orion in 2022, and launch Artemis II, which will orbit the moon and return with four astronauts, in April.

Since earlier this month, NASA has been attempting to launch its second Artemis mission, which would be the program’s first flight with a crew of astronauts. Three U.S. astronauts and a Canadian astronaut will fly around the moon and back in Orion over a 10-day journey.

But a leak of hydrogen, the key propellant that fuels SLS, occurred during a launch rehearsal this month, followed by problems with the upper part of the rocket, forcing NASA to rewind the rocket for repairs.

Reuters