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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.
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