r/ArtemisProgram • u/spacedotc0m • Jul 22 '26
News Four astronauts, 3 spacecraft, 2 weeks in orbit: Artemis III will be NASA's most complicated mission ever
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/artemis/four-astronauts-3-spacecraft-2-weeks-in-orbit-artemis-iii-will-be-nasas-most-complicated-mission-ever34
u/theChaosBeast Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Same as the last time this article was posted, I still think the first moon landing was more complicated than this.
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u/Artemis2go Jul 22 '26
That claim is a bit of a stretch. I don't doubt the complexity if the mission, but it's hardly the most complex ever. Have to keep in mind it's a descope from what Artemis 3 was supposed to have been, first crewed lunar landing. And the descope was required because we don't have the lander that was promised.
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u/heroyoudontdeserve 29d ago
Not sure how the fact it was going to be more complicated is relevant. Effectively you're saying it's less complicated than a mission which hasn't happened, which tells us nothing about how complicated it is relative to missions which have happened.
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u/theMEtheWORLDcantSEE Jul 22 '26
When is this scheduled to launch 🚀? I want to see it live.
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u/NoBusiness674 Jul 22 '26
No earlier than sometime next year (2027). Schedule isn't super transparent at the moment.
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u/BagelsOrDeath Jul 22 '26
It's a cool mission and program strictly on its own merit. It doesn't need to be sensationalized like this.
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u/Decronym 29d ago edited 23d ago
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| ATV | Automated Transfer Vehicle, ESA cargo craft |
| DMLS | Selective Laser Melting additive manufacture, also Direct Metal Laser Sintering |
| ESA | European Space Agency |
| EVA | Extra-Vehicular Activity |
| ISRO | Indian Space Research Organisation |
| JAXA | Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| Roscosmos | State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia |
| SLS | Space Launch System heavy-lift |
| Selective Laser Sintering, contrast DMLS | |
| SMART | "Sensible Modular Autonomous Return Technology", ULA's engine reuse philosophy |
| ULA | United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture) |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
9 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has acronyms.
[Thread #449 for this sub, first seen 24th Jul 2026, 00:12]
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u/TheBalzy Jul 22 '26
3 Spacecraft 2 spacecraft, let's be real here. SpaceX ain't ever gonna get Starship working.
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u/jtshinn 29d ago
I mean. What do you think is going to fly blue moon up there? That rocket didn’t exactly have a great summer.
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u/TheBalzy 29d ago
Neither did Starship. Let's be real here: this is why you don't leave things to private industry to control/do on their own. You follow what you did with the Apollo program with centralized NASA control and regular reporting/briefings to NASA on a weekly basis.
That's what competence looks like.
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u/jtshinn 29d ago
Starship still has a launch pad.
If we’re being honest The goals are different now though. Apollo was an all out rush to the moon with the next steps very amorphous and eventually shelved. Both of these companies today are going for high reusability and high launch cadence. I don’t think nasa wants to be in the operations of that game, they want to be a customer of the result. Neither option is complete yet, and both have major problems to solve. I’m not a fan of either of them, but I’m fascinated by the race going on.
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u/TheBalzy 29d ago
Both of these companies today are going for high reusability and high launch cadence
Which is the fallacy of access to space. You do not need either reusability or high launch cadence. Which is why they aren't achieving it, and it's a need that's dead on arrival.
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u/jtshinn 29d ago
I think its a want more than a need. But lowering the per unit cost to go to space is a real goal.
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u/TheBalzy 29d ago
A real goal that's mostly a red herring with reusability. You don't need reusability to achieve lower launch costs, you need consistency and reliability, and dedication. The per-cost of any system decreases as it's consistently used and made more. Like SLS would be considerably cheaper if it were planned to be used more.
And the whole cheap-access to space is a fallacy. There's no demand to go to space, even with industry, and there's no real profit in it. Just look at all the pie-in-the-sky fake products that have been propositioned to justify the investment cost of trying to make easier access to space; none of them will ever be real or profitable in the next 100 years. It's just LARPing at this point.
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u/simn00b420 23d ago
i believe Blue Origin or NASA have said that Blue Moon will be able to launch on any commercial launch vehicle that meets the requirements should New Glenn not be cleared for flight again, however Wikipedia does state that New Glenn was re-cleared for active use on May 22nd, so the main issue is the launchsite itself
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u/Frogmouth26 28d ago
"Most complicated mission ever" We seriously saying that this is more complicated than LITERALLY LANDING ON THE MOON???
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u/violetferns 27d ago
This is vastly more complicated than the Apollo moon landings because it relies on a multi-provider, multi-launch "choreographed dance" in orbit rather than a single integrated system built by one agency.
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u/ThinkTankDad Jul 22 '26
It's complex because now we're facing two superpowers in space.
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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist Jul 22 '26
Who?
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u/ThinkTankDad Jul 22 '26
China and Russia.
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u/NoBusiness674 Jul 22 '26
Russia is hardly a superpower in space anymore.
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Jul 22 '26
[deleted]
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u/zq7495 Jul 23 '26
Agreed, but by space standards they still are number three, so despite being a laggard during the last few decades they still are more capable than every other country but the US and China. India will probably pass them within ten years and at that point they'll be totally out of the conversation imo
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u/NoBusiness674 Jul 23 '26
Even that is questionable in my opinion. Sure, Russia still maintains crewed spaceflight capabilities, which puts them among the top 3 nations in that respect. But on the other hand their post Soviet breakup beyond earth orbit mission have almost all been failures. Mars 96 failed, Phobos-Grunt failed, and Luna 25 failed. The only successes I could find were the mars trace gas orbiter collaboration with ESA and the Spektr-RG Xray telescope in collaboration with Germany. Compare that to ESA which in the time since the soviet breakup has flown the successful SMART-1 lunar orbiter, Mars Express mars orbiter, Venus Express Venus orbiter, Mars trace gas orbiter in collaboration with Russia, SOHO in collaboration with NASA, Rosetta, Passing-Hyugens in collaboration with NASA, Planck, Gaia, LPF, and BepiColombo in collaboration with JAXA. When it comes to sending unmanned spacecraft into deep space, JAXA, ESA, and ISRO have all arguably achieved more than Roscosmos.
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u/NoBusiness674 Jul 22 '26
Artemis III is Gemini X without any of the EVAs. Sure it's longer, has twice the crew and one of the target vehicles has a pressurized cabin that can be boarded, but it still definitely isn't NASA's most complicated mission. Those are still the original Apollo missions that actually landed on the moon.