NASA, Artemis, and Mars Timelines – Part 2: Addressing Remaining Challenges

In Part 1 of this two-part series on NASA, Artemis and Mars, I charted the timelines and ambitions of the U.S. Agency and commercial space partners. In Part 2, I describe the challenges, what needs to be sorted out, and whether some of the stated goals are achievable within the target dates.

Why The NASA Artemis Program Or Not

Before considering sending humans to Mars, NASA decided a return to the Moon would be a testbed for developing the technologies needed to get to Mars. The Artemis Program was seen as a stepping stone. Numerous delays have beset Artemis, however, from the beginning.

It required NASA to rebuild its integrated launch system technology that it formerly used for the Apollo Program. The result is the Space Launch System (SLS), a throwaway behemoth of a rocket that bears a resemblance to the Saturn V of the Apollo Program. The same is true of the Orion spaceship, a larger version of the Apollo space capsule.

In the first test of the technology, the Artemis I mission, an early version of the SLS was used to launch Orion beyond the Moon before it returned to an ocean landing on Earth. Examination of the spaceship indicated unexpected heat shield pitting requiring re-engineering that has delayed Artemis II by two years. The escalating mission costs of the entire program will reach $93 billion by the end of 2025.

When Artemis III returns astronauts to the Moon’s surface sometime in 2027, saner heads at the Agency may finally intervene to consider going to cheaper competing technologies from commercial operators. The solutions for subsequent Moon voyages may lie with NASA’s current commercial partners like SpaceX and Blue Origin. Both are already contracted to build Moon landers. Both have powerful reusable rocket technology that could end the need for the SLS.

In Part 1, we described the Mars agenda for SpaceX. The Starship is being designed for interplanetary travel. It is reconfigurable as the upcoming HLS version will show. The HLS will land on the Moon where there is no atmosphere. Starships have already landed on Earth in test flights. When SpaceX sends several Starships to Mars as it intends in the next few years, handling landings on the Red Planet should become feasible and eventually routine. But none of this answers the question of how safe the journey will be when humans fly to Mars and stay on its surface for protracted lengths.

Why Mars Sample Return Is Still Relevant Or Not

Speaking of the Martian surface, when Perseverance was conceived, one of its tasks in exploring the Jezzero Crater was to dig up and scrape samples for future scientific examination. In a recent news release, a NASA spokesperson described the science of these samples as ground-breaking. Right now, however, they are packed in vials lying on the surface where Perseverance left them waiting to be picked up.

That was the purpose of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, to gather those samples and bring them back to Earth in 2033. The technology to do this was developed in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA). MSR project costs skyrocketed so NASA decided to delay the project and seek a less expensive way to get the Perseverance samples back.

The two options NASA is currently considering include:

• A lander collector and launcher using a version of the sky-crane landing technology used to put Curiosity and Perseverance on Mars. ESA would still send its orbiter and a lander as originally planned with the earliest return date between 2035 and 2039.
• Using landers such as those for the Artemis III and V missions, this option would deliver rovers and helicopters as payload and use them to gather the Perseverance samples to return to Earth probably within the same timelines.

For both cases, if NASA sticks to a crewed mission happening in 2035, MSR’s samples may become redundant, or if the crewed mission lands near the Jezzero Crater site, the astronauts could pick up the samples themselves.

Planetary Alignments Present Mars Flight Complications

Favourable launch windows determine when to send missions to Mars. How do you calculate these? The mathematics of two objects moving around the Sun at different speeds and on different trajectories determines when is the best time to launch.

It turns out to be approximately every 26 Earth months when everything aligns. This happens because while Earth orbits the Sun every 365.25 days, Mars orbits it every 1.9 Earth years. That means a spacecraft launched from Earth has to target a location where Mars will be and not where it is at the time of launch. The launch window periodic alignment allows for a direct trajectory.

Perseverance was launched in 2020 and took a direct trajectory to Mars. Its trip took 204 Earth days with an initial launch speed of just under 40,000 kilometres per hour (24,600 miles per hour) and after an interplanetary insertion burn an average cruising speed of 100,260 kph (62,300 mph) over the 470 million kilometres (292 million miles) trip.

NASA’s Odyssey or SpaceX’s Starship could duplicate the Perseverance fast trajectory. NASA, however, doesn’t plan for human spaceflight to Mars using the Perseverance voyage model. Instead, it plans for voyages lasting nine months and stays on the surface between 90 and 500 days to align favourable launch periods to return to Earth.

Think about the burden of onboard resources missions of this duration require lasting well over three Earth years. This isn’t a three-day journey to the Moon and a two-week stay before coming home. But doing the Moon could be good preparation for the leap to Mars although some say not.

Going Back To The Moon – Been There, Done That 

The Apollo Program made six voyages of discovery to the Moon. Do we need to go back? Ask Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, and he will say no. He thinks the current Artemis Program is largely misdirection. Musk sees getting to Mars as essential to make humans an interplanetary species. Is he right?

Does the U.S. need to be spending $93 billion by the end of this year chasing a return to the Moon? Musk doesn’t think so and the new Trump-nominated NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, may agree.

I disagree with Musk but for other reasons. I have issues with the entire human space program going to places with deep gravity wells rather than building a space infrastructure of free-floating colonies using materials mined from captured or visited asteroids. This is a strategy that eliminates the burden of dealing with launch thrust requirements to escape bodies like Mars.

But since we are going down the route of making celestial bodies our destinations for the foreseeable space future, then the Moon appears to be the perfect place to test the technologies we need. The Moon as a test bed is only three days from Earth. If something goes wrong on Mars, without self-sufficiency, there is no nearby remedy.

To Make Mars Possible This Is What We Need

Several key technologies need to be perfected to make living on the Moon viable. Lunar solutions will not be enough for Mars. The journey from the Earth to the Moon is a puddle jump compared to the one to Mars.

Protecting a crew from space threats over three days isn’t the same as keeping them healthy and alive for a six to nine-month voyage.

What are the technologies that need to be developed or perfected for the Martian project? Here are the ones that immediately come to mind:

1. Life Support Systems – The technologies needed to sustain a crew for the duration of a mission include regenerating breathable air, onboard food production, managing waste and providing the means to handle medical emergencies. The International Space Station (ISS) is the current test bed for developing life support systems including onboard food production. See a previous posting I published here entitled, “The Biggest Impediment to Humans Going to Mars is Food Not Whether SpaceX’s Starship Can Fly.”
2. Radiation Protection – A voyage to and from Mars and a prolonged stay will expose the crew to cosmic radiation levels unlike any the Apolo astronauts endured. For that reason, NASA has been developing an Advanced Radiation Protection (ARP) program looking at different materials and electromagnetic field technologies to protect humans on interplanetary flights, spacewalks, and forays outside on Mars. NASA is researching wearable radiation shielding. It is looking at biological methods of radiation protection involving screening crew members to determine ways to boost their immune system responses to radiation exposure. On the ISS NASA is even experimenting with radiotrophic fungi which can be grown and worn to become a self-regenerating biological radiation shield.
3. Lower Fuel Payloads and Alternative Propulsion Systems – Relying on chemical propulsion makes getting to Mars far more onerous. NASA has researched alternative propulsion technologies such as nuclear and ion propulsion. The former was first pioneered during the NERVA program in the 1970s. Now NASA is revisiting the nuclear option. At the same time, NASA is perfecting ion propulsion which it has used for many scientific missions. Both options have an advantage over chemical rockets. Both, however, can be ignited only after a chemical-powered rocket booster has successfully launched its payload into orbit. After that, the spaceship requires a much smaller fuel payload for interplanetary transit. To learn more read, “Why the Nuclear Option is a Necessity if Humans Are Ever Going to Get to Mars and Return Alive.”
4. In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Systems – Chemical propulsion technology is needed to escape the gravity wells of celestial bodies. Carrying the extra payload burden of these chemicals is unfeasible for travelling to and from Mars. Once the spaceship has landed, however, the mission needs to replenish its stores. That’s why NASA has been developing technologies to produce methane and oxygen on Mars. Perseverance has MOXIE on board and demonstrated it can harvest oxygen from the Martian atmosphere. Other NASA projects here on Earth are working with bacteria to biologically manufacture propellant from carbon dioxide combined with sunlight and water to make propellant chemicals. This is a technology that can work on Mars. NASA estimates it will need 7 tons of liquid methane and 22 tons of liquid oxygen produced over 18 Earth months using ISRU to meet surface needs and return launch requirements. Ideally, the equipment can be delivered to start producing the needed chemicals before any humans land on the planet.
5. Artificial Intelligence Algorithms and Robot Deployment – The explosion in AI development here on Earth bodes well for future systems to be incorporated into a voyage to Mars. AI can take on the burden of managing the navigation and ship operations of a long interplanetary voyage. I’m not talking about HAL, the AI system used by Discovery in Arthur Clarke’s novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey. The AI systems along with smart sensors would help with navigation, spaceship maintenance, and emergency scenarios that occur along the way. Using AI this way is critical for a mission to Mars where communication with Earth will suffer from 4 to 22-minute delays and potential blackouts.
6. Upgraded Communication Systems – The distance between Earth and Mars alters substantially throughout a six to nine-month voyage. Communication and data exchanges, therefore, require more robust technology than radio frequency used by NASA in its current human space program. For the trip to Mars, the signal delay maximum of 22 minutes is not the sole challenge. Solar conjunctions when the Sun is between the Earth and Mars, will cause communication blackouts every 26 months that will last for two Earth weeks. To address these challenges NASA and ESA are developing laser-based, high-bandwidth communication to provide faster data and voice transmissions. The High-Rate Delay Tolerant Network (HDTN) is another NASA system designed to address signal disruptions. SpaceX has a proposal to duplicate the Starlink constellation around Earth called Marslink. An advanced relay network of satellites between Earth and Mars would be a useful addition to facilitate better communications between the two planets to reduce blackouts.

So there you have it! There’s a lot of homework between now and those targeted dates mentioned in Part 1. Keeping all the irons in the fire for the duration and raising funds from public and private sources will be critical to making the interplanetary dream come true.