Will it take off? Won’t it take off? Since last summer, NASA’s giant SLS (Space Launch Systems) rocket, which is expected to allow American astronauts to return to the moon by 2025, has been playing on the nerves of space enthusiasts. Amidst engine cooling problems and fuel leaks, two launch attempts were canceled, in late August and early September, before the launcher was repatriated to its assembly building to protect it from Hurricane Ian. The maiden flight is now scheduled for mid-November.
This first shot from SLS, the most powerful launcher ever developed by NASA, is expected: the mission, dubbed Artemis 1, is to send an unmanned Orion capsule around the moon before returning to Earth. Artemis 2, scheduled for 2024, will do the same with astronauts on board, before the big jump Artemis 3 (2025), which will see NASA astronauts step on the moon again for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972 Eleven years old after the start of its development, SLS perfectly embodies regularly reprimanded at NASA. The giant launcher is over six years behind schedule and has already required an investment of $ 23 billion, nearly six times that of Ariane 6.
Read alsoArtemis mission: because the return to the moon has not yet been won
Worse still, NASA’s Inspectorate General has calculated that each launch would cost just over $ 2.2 billion, seven times NASA is seeking the right orbit Despite the increase in resources, the US space agency is still penalized from its heaviness. Witness the delays and additional costs of the SLS moon rocket. more than SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, Elon Musk’s company. “SLS will be the last rocket built by NASA, estimates Eric Berger, space specialist for the US site Ars Technica. In the future, it will simply purchase launch services from private industry. The question is how long will SLS last. A year? Ten years?” Much will depend on the success of SpaceX and its giant Starship launcher. “
Hostage of politics
However, NASA has benefited from a nice financial boost from the American taxpayer. Its budget has increased by 42% since 2013, to reach $ 24 billion in 2022. So how do you explain the setbacks of SLS? “The counterpart of the greater resources is that NASA remains hostage to politics, emphasizes Pierre Lionnet, an economist specializing in space at Eurospace. On the SLS, for example, the US Senate has imposed an industrial return to the various states, which makes the program largely partly ineffective. Ditto when Trump asked for a return to the moon as early as 2024: the agency had to hurry to try to comply with the program “.
Nonetheless, the American space industry has made real progress in recent years. With the scrapping of the shuttles in 2011, the United States had no solution to send astronauts to the International Space Station. The first world power thus found itself under the humiliating dependence of the Russian Soyuz. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, thanks to the contract signed by NASA in 2014, allowed Washington to regain its sovereignty in 2020. “NASA has begun a transition towards purchasing services rather than equipment, points out Eric Berger. It is not progressing as fast as some would like, but it is moving in the right direction. “
Defense of the planet
The agency has also shown that it always knows how to make the crowd dream. Its new James Webb Space Telescope, put into orbit at the end of 2021, is revolutionizing knowledge of the Universe. NASA also hit hard by sending the Dart probe to crash into an asteroid in late September in an attempt to change its trajectory. The mission, crowned with success, allows to foresee missions to defend the planet if one day the asteroids should threaten it.
