NASA

4–5 minutes

WASHINGTON — One of the largest antennas in NASA’s Deep Space Network was damaged in September and may be out of service for an extended period, further straining the system.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed Nov. 10 that the 70-meter antenna at the Deep Space Network (DSN) site in Goldstone, California, has been offline since Sept. 16, with no timetable for its return to service.

“On Sept. 16, NASA’s large 70-meter radio frequency antenna at its Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California, over-rotated, causing stress on the cabling and piping in the center of the structure,” JPL said in a statement to SpaceNews. “Hoses from the antenna’s fire suppression system also were damaged, resulting in flooding that was quickly mitigated.”

The antenna, designated DSS-14, is the largest at the Goldstone site and among the largest in the entire DSN. Two other 70-meter antennas operate at DSN sites near Madrid, Spain, and Canberra, Australia. The 70-meter antennas are essential for communicating with spacecraft in the outer solar system and can also be used for closer missions requiring higher data rates or experiencing technical problems. Each DSN site also has several smaller antennas.

Rumors of significant damage to DSS-14 had circulated for weeks. A website that provides real-time monitoring of DSN communications showed no activity at DSS-14, displaying only an “Antenna Unplanned Maintenance” status. JPL said last month that it could not comment on the antenna’s status, citing difficulties coordinating with NASA offices during the government shutdown.

The new JPL statement did not specify when DSS-14 might resume operations, noting that NASA has convened a mishap investigation board to review the incident.

“The antenna remains offline as the board members, engineers and technicians evaluate the structure and make recommendations and repairs,” JPL stated. “NASA will provide information on the board’s findings and next steps for returning the antenna to service after the federal government reopens.”

Extended outages of DSN’s 70-meter antennas are not unprecedented. The 70-meter antenna in Australia, DSS-43, underwent 11 months of upgrades in 2020 and 2021 that prevented it from transmitting. That antenna is the only one capable of communicating with Voyager 2, now operating in the outer reaches of the solar system.

The loss of any DSN antenna adds pressure to a network that NASA and its watchdogs have warned is already overstretched. The agency’s Office of Inspector General found in a 2023 audit that the DSN “is currently oversubscribed and will continue to be overburdened by the demands created by an increasing number of deep space missions.”

That strain was exacerbated by the Artemis 1 mission in 2022, which used the DSN to communicate with the Orion spacecraft in cislunar space as well as several cubesat secondary payloads. Other missions, including the James Webb Space Telescope, had to adjust operations because of reduced access to the network.

“When Artemis comes online, everybody else moves out of the way, and it’s an impact to all the science missions,” Suzanne Dodd, director of the interplanetary network directorate at JPL, said during a 2023 advisory committee meeting.

She said those challenges are compounded by declining budgets for maintaining the network. “Looking out to the 2030s, that really scares us on the DSN,” she said.

4–5 minutes

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Preparations for NASA’s Artemis 2 launch could soon grind to a halt if the nearly month-long government shutdown continues, one industry executive warned.

Work on the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft for the mission, scheduled to launch as soon as February, has continued despite the shutdown that began Oct. 1 and furloughed most NASA civil servants.

That work includes mating the Orion spacecraft to the SLS in the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 20. NASA’s “continuity of appropriations” plan for handling a shutdown specifically exempts from furloughs staff working on Artemis operations, including preparations for Artemis 2.

However, Kirk Shireman, vice president of human space exploration and Orion program manager at Lockheed Martin, said he doubted that work could remain unaffected for much longer if the shutdown persists.

“Practically, we’ve tried very, very hard not to have the government shutdown impact us,” he said during a panel at the American Astronautical Society’s von Braun Space Exploration Symposium here Oct. 28, adding that so far they have experienced only “nuisance kinds of things” related to the shutdown. “We’re rapidly approaching the point where it will be a significant impact.”

He said part of the challenge comes from “secondary impacts” not directly tied to Artemis. One example, he said, is the potential for increased flight delays and cancellations as air traffic controllers, who are working without pay during the shutdown, call in sick.

A more direct effect is the lack of payments to contractors. Large companies like Lockheed Martin, he said, have the financial cushion to continue work without payments, but smaller suppliers do not.

“Small companies, here in Huntsville and across the nation, are not getting paid, and ultimately they’re not going to be able to continue working,” he warned.

“It’s coming,” he said of the broader impacts of the shutdown on Artemis, but did not offer a specific timeline.

Others on the panel said they have not yet noticed any immediate impacts from the shutdown on Artemis 2 preparations. “We are ready for Artemis 2,” said Mike Lauer, general manager and program manager for the RS-25 engine at Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris company. Four RS-25 engines power the SLS core stage, while the upper stage uses an RL10 engine, also made by Aerojet Rocketdyne.

He added that the company expects to perform hot-fire tests of the second in a new line of RS-25 engines at NASA’s Stennis Space Center “in a few short weeks.”

The shutdown has also affected the conference itself. The event originally planned a panel devoted to Artemis 2 featuring NASA speakers, but the shutdown prevented them and other agency officials from participating. Shireman and Lauer instead spoke on a separate industry panel about work on Artemis 3 and future missions.

4–5 minutes

WASHINGTON — The Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 2 mission has been installed on its Space Launch System rocket as preparations for the circumlunar flight continue despite a government shutdown.

Sean Duffy, NASA’s acting administration, announced on social media Oct. 20 that the Orion spacecraft, called Integrity by its four-person crew, was “fully attached” to the SLS inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center.

Orion rolled over to the VAB late Oct. 16 after completing work at another building at the center. That included having its launch abort system attached to the top of the capsule.

“The last major hardware component before Artemis II launches early next year has been installed,” Duffy announced.

That work is continuing despite a government shutdown that started Oct. 1 when Congress failed to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded as the 2026 fiscal year began. Duffy’s post was the only official word about the stacking as NASA is not updating its website or social media channels during the shutdown.

Duffy, in an appearance on Fox News Oct. 20, said NASA has received White House approval to continue Artemis 2 preparations during the shutdown. “We worked really hard with President Trump to make sure we don’t delay in a space race. We want to make sure that NASA and the critical missions like Artemis, we have our NASA scientists and technicians still working on the project,” he said.

NASA officials said in September that they expected to be able to continue launch preparations in the event of a shutdown, citing precedents from previous shutdowns.

Lakiesha Hawkins, acting deputy associate administrator in NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said at a Sept. 23 briefing that the agency has been able to get exceptions for “safety-critical” activities like launch preparations in past shutdowns.

“This is obviously very safety critical and we anticipate being able to request, and being able to continue to move forward on, Artemis 2 in the event of a shutdown,” she said.

“NASA would continue to support Artemis operations during any funding lapse,” the agency stated in its “continuity of appropriations” plan that discussed what work would continue in the event of a shutdown. That included work “to protect production of elements of Artemis II and III and related activities” as well as to “maintain processing and supply chain safety” for later missions.

At the Kennedy Space Center, where Artemis 2 launch preparations are taking place, 989 of the center’s 2,075 civil servants are excepted from furloughs, although they are currently not being paid. By contrast, at NASA’s Langley Research Center, whose work is primarily in aeronautics, science and space technology, only 34 of its 1,756 civil servants are excepted from furloughs, according to the NASA plan updated Sept. 29.

While work continues on Artemis 2, being able to talk about it publicly is not included in the exceptions to furloughs. The American Astronautical Society’s Von Braun Space Exploration Symposium, scheduled for Oct. 27 through 29 in Huntsville, Alabama, had planned a panel discussion on Artemis 2 featuring program leadership.

An updated version of the conference agenda released Oct. 20 no longer includes that panel, and other NASA officials who were scheduled to participate in the event, including Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya and Associate Administrator for Science Nicola Fox, are also no longer on the agenda.

6–7 minutes

Updated 6:10 p.m. Eastern with NASA statement.

WASHINGTON — NASA’s acting administrator says he plans to “open up the contract” SpaceX holds to land astronauts on the moon for the Artemis 3 mission because the company has fallen behind schedule.

In appearances on CNBC and Fox News on Oct. 20, NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy said NASA would allow other companies to compete to land astronauts on the moon for Artemis 3, a mission currently assigned to SpaceX’s Starship under a Human Landing System (HLS) contract awarded in 2021.

“SpaceX had the contract for Artemis 3,” Duffy said on CNBC. “The problem is they’re behind. They push their timelines out, and we’re in a race against China. The president and I want to get to the moon in this president’s term.”

“So, I’m going to open up the contract,” he continued. “I’m going to let other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin, and again, whatever one can get us there first, to the moon, we’re going to take.”

Duffy made similar remarks on Fox News. “SpaceX has the contract. SpaceX is an amazing company. They do remarkable things, but they’re behind schedule,” he said. “So, I’m in the process of opening that contract up.”

“We’re going to have a space race in regard to American companies competing to see who can actually get us back to the moon first,” he said.

Duffy did not explain how such a “space race” would work or how it would be funded. Asked for further details, Bethany Stevens, NASA’s press secretary, provided only transcripts of Duffy’s television appearances. Most of NASA’s public affairs staff are currently furloughed because of the government shutdown that began Oct. 1.

She provided more details in a separate statement late in the day Oct. 20. “NASA’s Human Landing System program has given both SpaceX and Blue Origin the opportunity to present acceleration approaches by Oct. 29,” she stated. “NASA is also going to request plans from the entire commercial space industry – through an RFI – for how NASA can increase the cadence of our mission to the moon.”

The comments are the first public acknowledgment by NASA’s acting leader that development of the HLS version of Starship is behind schedule. Duffy previously maintained that Artemis 3 would launch in 2027, the agency’s official target, even as multiple Starship test flight failures earlier this year made that timeline increasingly unlikely.

In late July, Duffy told social media influencers attending the Crew-11 launch that SpaceX executives, including company president Gwynne Shotwell, assured him Starship would be ready for Artemis 3. “They feel very comfortable on Starship. They feel like they’re on pace for the lander,” he said then. “They said if there’s a holdup for Artemis 3, it’s not going to be them.”

After former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told a Senate committee in September it was unlikely the United States would return humans to the moon before China’s first crewed landing, Duffy pushed back. “We are going to beat the Chinese to the moon. We are going to make sure that we do this safely. We’re going to do it fast. We’re going to do it right,” he said in an internal NASA town hall, without suggesting a change in approach for Artemis 3.

In his Oct. 20 interviews, Duffy acknowledged that Artemis 3 likely would not launch in 2027. On CNBC, after discussing Artemis 2’s planned launch as soon as next February, he said that “Artemis 3 comes a couple years after that.”

One of the competitors Duffy mentioned was Blue Origin, which has a separate HLS award to develop its Blue Moon Mark 2 lander for missions beginning with Artemis 5. The company reportedly has studied ways to adapt its smaller Blue Moon Mark 1 lander for a crewed mission, although one industry source described those concepts as “jury-rigged” and noted that Mark 1 currently cannot lift off from the lunar surface with any useful payload.

Other companies are also examining lunar lander concepts. “Throughout this year, Lockheed Martin has been performing significant technical and programmatic analysis for human lunar landers that would provide options to NASA for a safe solution to return humans to the moon as quickly as possible,” Bob Behnken, vice president of exploration and technology strategy at Lockheed Martin Space, said in a statement.

“We have been working with a cross-industry team of companies, and together we are looking forward to addressing Secretary Duffy’s request to meet our country’s lunar objectives,” he said, without providing details about the Lockheed lander concept.

SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk appeared unconcerned about potential competition. “They won’t,” he said in a social media post responding to a comment that it was “silly” to think another company would have a lander ready before Starship. “SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry.”

“Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole moon mission. Mark my words,” he added.

5–6 minutes

WASHINGTON — Five years after the first countries signed the Artemis Accords, a growing group of nations continues to work on how to implement the guidelines contained in the document.

Oct. 13 marked the fifth anniversary of a signing ceremony where the United States and seven other countries — Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom — became the first to sign the Accords, which outline norms of behavior for space exploration.

The anniversary passed with little fanfare, in part because the ongoing U.S. government shutdown, now more than two weeks long, has kept NASA from issuing press releases or other public statements on most topics.

NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy did note the anniversary in a social media post. “Together, we’re committed to peaceful, safe and transparent exploration of the moon and beyond,” he wrote.

The number of Artemis Accords signatories has grown sevenfold in the past five years, with 56 nations now having signed. The most recent was Senegal, which joined at a NASA Headquarters event July 24.

Representatives of 39 of the 56 signatories met Sept. 29 during the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney, Australia. The closed-door meeting, co-chaired by Australia, the UAE and the United States, focused on implementing elements of the Accords, including safety zones and interoperability.

“As we get closer to returning to the moon at the beginning of next year with humans for the first time since 1972, it’s more and more important that the topics we discussed were on the table,” said Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator, during a news conference at the IAC after the meeting.

One major issue discussed was noninterference, said Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, a UAE government minister who chairs the board of the UAE Space Agency. One section of the Artemis Accords addresses deconfliction of space activities, including the use of “safety zones” to prevent harmful interference.

“A safety zone is not well defined,” he said, noting questions such as how large it should be. “A second point is, what is considered harmful interference?”

He said the meeting explored several scenarios involving countries and companies both within and outside the Artemis Accords but did not elaborate on how those examples shaped the discussion.

“A lot of work has been done on the open sharing of scientific data,” another principle of the Accords, Kshatriya said. NASA plans to host a workshop on that topic within the next year “with the overarching theme of transparency being the most important thing for us.”

A third topic was orbital debris, particularly around the moon, said Enrico Palermo, head of the Australian Space Agency. “On Earth, we have an atmosphere where objects can reenter and demise. We don’t have that on the moon, and we also don’t have as many stable orbits,” he said. “Preserving lunar orbits and keeping them sustainable for exploration for all countries was an ongoing focus.”

A broader challenge is encouraging more nations to join the Accords and take part in discussions. Only four countries have signed so far this year, compared to 19 in 2024.

“We want more people to join us and explore with us,” Kshatriya said. “But when resources are constrained, how do you make sure that emerging spacefaring nations are able to participate in this incredible adventure?”

“Some members are trying to find their value add for the Accords,” Al Falasi said. An upcoming workshop in Peru, he added, will explore how to ensure all signatories can actively participate in discussions. “We want to have a very well-defined way that enables these countries to contribute.”

One ongoing concern is the lack of public detail about what the Accords members have discussed or agreed on. Asked at the news conference if there would be a formal communiqué summarizing outcomes and recommendations, Al Falasi said that responsibility rests with NASA.

Kshatriya said that would come “as soon as we consolidate the recommendations and publish a plan for the next workshop” in Peru. “We’ll follow up as soon as we can.”

~1 minute

October 9, 2025 at 5:07 PM UTC

Updated on

October 9, 2025 at 6:14 PM UTC

Jared Isaacman and President Donald Trump have met in recent weeks and discussed reviving the fintech billionaire’s nomination to lead NASA, according to a person familiar with the matter.

A decision to reconsider the Elon Musk ally would mark a major reversal for Trump after the White House revoked the job offer in May citing Isaacman’s ties to Democratic politicians. That left NASA without a long-term leader as the space agency grapples with funding and job cuts and races to bring astronauts back to the moon.

3–4 minutes

SYDNEY — The director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center has abruptly stepped down, becoming the third NASA center director to leave in recent months.

In a Sept. 24 memo to employees, Joseph Pelfrey announced he would no longer serve as director of the Alabama center but said he hoped to continue working for the agency in some way.

Pelfrey did not give a specific reason for his departure but suggested he was leaving to allow NASA leadership to select its own choice to lead the center.

“As the Agency continues to embark on a bold mission to return humans to the moon, it will take the full attention of its leaders and the people they serve. It will also be important for agency leadership to move forward with a team they choose to execute the tasks at hand,” he wrote. “With that in mind, it’s time for me to step out of the Center Director role.”

He added that he would work with NASA leadership “to pursue new ways I can serve our space program and our great Nation” but did not elaborate.

Pelfrey became director of Marshall in February 2024 after serving as acting director from June 2023, when the previous director, Jody Singer, retired. He joined Marshall in 2004 as an aerospace engineer and rose through the ranks, becoming deputy center director in 2022.

NASA has not issued a formal statement about Pelfrey’s departure, and the agency’s main web page for the center still listed him as director as of Sept. 27. Elsewhere on the site, Rae Ann Meyer, the center’s deputy director, was listed as acting director. Meyer joined Marshall as an engineer in 1989 and became deputy director in May 2024.

Pelfrey is the third NASA center director to leave in recent months. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced May 7 that Laurie Leshin would resign as director effective June 1, citing personal reasons. David Gallagher, JPL’s associate director for strategic integration, succeeded her.

NASA announced July 21 that Makenzie Lystrup was leaving as director of the Goddard Space Flight Center effective Aug. 1. Cynthia Simmons, Goddard’s deputy center director, replaced her on an acting basis.

5–6 minutes

WASHINGTON — NASA’s Artemis 2 mission around the moon could launch as soon as early February, as both agency officials and the mission’s four-person crew say they are ready for the flight.

At a Sept. 23 briefing at the Johnson Space Center, officials reaffirmed the current schedule, which calls for a launch no later than April 2026, but could take place as soon as February.

Lakiesha Hawkins, acting deputy associate administrator in NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, for the first time offered a specific no-earlier-than launch date: Feb. 5.

“Of course, there will be more work in order to nail that down,” she said. Launch periods for Artemis 2 last four to eight days each month, with most February opportunities in the evening.

Hawkins said there is pressure to accelerate Artemis 2, which has already slipped from 2024 because of Orion spacecraft issues, including unexpected heat shield erosion seen on Artemis 1 in 2022.

“The message has been clear to us that this administration asked us to acknowledge that we are indeed in what people have commonly called a second space race,” she said. “There is a desire for us to return to the surface of the moon and to be the first to return to the surface of the moon.”

“NASA’s objective, though, is to do so safely,” she added. “We have done assessments and we have worked together as a team to ensure that the progress that we are making is moving in an accelerated fashion, but that we are doing everything that we can to also ensure this mission is successful and that we return the crew back home safely.”

Hawkins said she does not expect launch preparations will be affected by a potential government shutdown at the start of the new fiscal year Oct. 1. Artemis has previously received exemptions to continue work during shutdowns on safety grounds. “We anticipate in this particular case that this is obviously very safety-critical,” she said, “and we anticipate being able to request and being able to continue to move forward on Artemis 2.” Hardware preparations

Other officials at the briefing said there are no showstoppers to a launch early next year as workers prepare the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.

“The SLS rocket is pretty much stacked and ready to go,” said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis launch director at Kennedy Space Center. The final major element, the Orion stage adapter, is scheduled for installation this week.

Orion is completing processing, including installation of its launch abort system. That work should wrap up within a week, after which the spacecraft will move to the Vehicle Assembly Building to be mounted on SLS.

The integrated SLS/Orion will then undergo months of testing in the VAB and at Launch Complex 39B, including a practice countdown with the Artemis 2 crew and a wet dress rehearsal where the rocket is fueled and counts down to T-29 seconds.

Blackwell-Thompson said hydrogen leak issues that delayed Artemis 1 have been resolved with hardware changes and lessons learned about managing flow rates and pressure. “We learned an awful lot with Artemis 1,” she said. Mission profile

Artemis 2 will be a roughly 10-day mission, beginning with a day in an elliptical Earth orbit to test Orion life support systems and perform a proximity operations demonstration, maneuvering to within 10 meters of the SLS upper stage.

The spacecraft will then conduct a translunar injection burn, placing it on a free-return trajectory around the moon before reentering Earth’s atmosphere and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean west of San Diego. Crew readiness

At a Sept. 24 briefing, the four American and Canadian astronauts flying on Artemis 2 said they were ready for the mission.

“There is no frustration in what we would perceive, from the outside looking in, as delays,” said mission commander Reid Wiseman. He said the crew has closely followed the vehicle’s progress and believes “now is the right time to fly.”

He added, though, that preparations are not being rushed. “This is a test mission. We just do not anchor on dates. We’re going to launch when this vehicle is ready, when this team is ready.”

The crew also announced the Orion spacecraft’s name: Integrity.

Wiseman said the name emerged from discussions among the four primary crew members and two backups, inspired by the core values of NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, among other factors.

“Then we looked out at what is going on with Artemis 2, what do we want this to be,” he said, citing both enabling a future Artemis 3 landing and providing “peace and hope for all humankind.”

“So we’re going to fly around the moon in the spacecraft Integrity,” he said.

4–5 minutes

WASHINGTON — NASA has awarded a $30 million contract to a startup to attempt to boost the orbit of an astronomy satellite before it reenters next year.

NASA announced Sept. 24 that Katalyst Space won a $30 million Small Business Innovation Research Phase 3 contract to reboost the orbit of the Swift spacecraft in spring 2026. Katalyst will send a spacecraft to dock with Swift and raise its orbit before it makes an uncontrolled reentry, expected in the second half of 2026.

Katalyst received one of two study contracts from NASA on Aug. 11 to examine the feasibility of raising Swift’s orbit. The other went to a team led by Astroscale U.S. and Cambrian Works. The short studies explored how spacecraft already in development could be used to perform the maneuver.

“Given how quickly Swift’s orbit is decaying, we are in a race against the clock, but by leveraging commercial technologies that are already in development, we are meeting this challenge head-on,” Shawn Domagal-Goldman, acting director of NASA’s astrophysics division, said in a statement.

“This is a forward-leaning, risk-tolerant approach for NASA. But attempting an orbit boost is both more affordable than replacing Swift’s capabilities with a new mission, and beneficial to the nation — expanding the use of satellite servicing to a new and broader class of spacecraft,” he said.

Katalyst said it will use a low Earth orbit demonstrator of its planned LINK geostationary servicing spacecraft for the reboost. That demonstrator, already scheduled to launch in 2026, would dock with Swift and raise its orbit.

LINK will use a custom-built mechanism to attach to Swift, which lacks interfaces to support servicing. Successfully doing so, Katalyst argues, would demonstrate the ability to service spacecraft not equipped with docking or similar systems, opening new commercial and national security markets.

“This is about saving a world-class science asset while proving the United States can execute rapid, on-orbit response,” Ghonhee Lee, chief executive of Katalyst Space, said in a statement.

Sarah Bradley, operations lead at Katalyst, told SpaceNews the company plans to start spacecraft assembly, integration and testing in December. “We’re confident in our ability to execute on this incredibly tight timeline, with less than eight months to delivery,” she said.

Bradley said the $30 million contract will fully fund the mission, including launch, although the company has not disclosed launch plans for LINK. The company estimates the mission will cost $10 million plus launch. Swift’s unusual orbit — with an inclination of about 20 degrees — will require a dedicated launch.

Katalyst, based in Flagstaff, Arizona, has not flown its own mission. In April 2024 it acquired Atomos Space, which flew a mission in March 2024 to test rendezvous, docking and refueling technologies. The two spacecraft on that mission, however, suffered several technical problems during commissioning.

The Artemis II crew members named their Orion spacecraft Integrity during a news conference Sept. 24.

5–6 minutes

WASHINGTON — NASA announced its newest class of astronauts Sept. 22 as agency leaders and lawmakers emphasized their intent to return humans to the moon before China.

At a ceremony at Johnson Space Center, NASA introduced the 10 members of the newest astronaut class, formally known as Group 24. The class includes scientists, engineers and pilots, with experience ranging from flying military aircraft in combat to working on the Curiosity Mars rover.

Group 24 stands out in several respects. The six women and four men represent NASA’s first astronaut class with more women than men.

It also includes the first American astronaut candidate with prior orbital spaceflight experience. Anna Menon, a SpaceX senior engineer, flew on the Polaris Dawn private astronaut mission a year ago on a Crew Dragon spacecraft. The only other NASA astronaut candidate with prior spaceflight experience was Joe Engle, an X-15 pilot who briefly flew above the 50-mile (80.5-kilometer) altitude the U.S. government recognizes as the boundary of space before joining the astronaut corps.

NASA selected the 10 candidates from a pool of 8,000 applicants. “This selection was challenging, competitive and very difficult,” said Norm Knight, director of flight operations at Johnson. “But what we have for you here today is a group of individuals who are not only exceptional but who will be inspirational for the United States of America and for our planet.”

Among the new astronauts is Lauren Edgar, a planetary scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey. She worked on the Mars Exploration Rovers and Curiosity Mars rover and was part of a team of scientists setting science goals for Artemis 3.

In an interview with SpaceNews after the event, Edgar said she had wanted to be an astronaut since seeing a shuttle launch in second grade. “That’s what set me on this path to becoming a planetary scientist,” she said. “This dream of becoming an astronaut has always been there, but I didn’t realize that it was possible until very recently.”

She applied to the previous two astronaut classes and, while not selected, served as a geology instructor for their training. “I’ve worked with some of these folks, and it is wonderful to now be here and be a part of the crew office with them.”

Edgar now moves from setting Artemis science goals to potentially carrying them out. “I’m excited to, in some ways, continue to work with all of those colleagues, but just in a new role that I have now,” she said. “So same end goal, just a different approach.”

She added that she had no specific preference for the kind of mission she would like to fly once training is complete. “I think this is just a really, really exciting time to be coming on board.” Beating China to the moon

Edgar and the other astronaut candidates will begin two years of training before becoming eligible for flight assignments. Those could include some of the last missions to the International Space Station and the first to the station’s commercial successors, as well as Artemis missions to the moon.

Officials used the ceremony to stress that Artemis remains on track to return astronauts to the moon before China, which has said it plans to land crews there by the end of the decade. Artemis 3, the first crewed lunar landing mission, is scheduled for mid-2027.

Some former NASA officials, including former Administrator Jim Bridenstine, have cast doubt on that schedule, citing delays with the lunar lander version of SpaceX’s Starship. “It is highly unlikely that we will land on the moon before China,” Bridenstine told the Senate Commerce Committee on Sept. 3.

NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel raised similar concerns at a Sept. 19 meeting. The schedule for Starship’s development “is significantly challenged and, in our estimation, could be years late for a 2027 Artemis 3 moon landing,” said Paul Hill, a panel member, after visiting SpaceX’s Starbase site and meeting with company executives.

Sean Duffy, NASA’s acting administrator, pushed back on those doubts.

“Some are challenging our leadership in space, say, like the Chinese,” he said. “I’ll be damned if the Chinese beat NASA, or beat America, back to the moon. We’re going to win.”

Duffy did not directly address recent criticism of Artemis, but his comments echoed remarks he made at an internal town hall Sept. 4, the day after Bridenstine’s testimony.

Leaders of two congressional committees made similar vows at the event. “We will go back to the moon. We will beat the Chinese to the moon,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee.

“NASA’s work is more important than ever. It is national security, folks. We must be on that lunar surface first,” said Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, chair of the House Science Committee. “This is important. We cannot fail there.”

Duffy added that the new class may not stop at the moon. “One of these 10 could actually be one of the first Americans to put their boots on the Mars surface.”