During a House Science, Space & Technology Committee hearing on Tuesday, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson faced tough questioning from lawmakers on the timeline for the agency’s ambitious Artemis moon program and its increasing reliance on commercial partners.
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), whose district includes over two dozen companies partnering with NASA on Artemis, pressed Nelson on minimizing potential delays to the program’s mission cadence.
“With all the challenges of such a complex and cutting-edge program, what can NASA do to minimize further delays in the Artemis Mission Cadence?” Frost asked.
Nelson responded bluntly: “We’re not going to launch until it’s ready because safety is our first [priority].” He acknowledged that “everything is cutting the edge of the envelope that we do” but assured that NASA will take every precaution, “especially when humans are in the loop.”
The NASA chief confirmed the agency remains “on schedule next year to have four astronauts circle the moon” aboard the Orion spacecraft during the Artemis 2 mission. He also noted NASA has a contract with SpaceX for a 2026 lunar landing attempt, “if that Lander is not ready we’re not going to fly at that time.”
Frost also inquired about “the most recent success” from NASA’s commercial lunar payload services program, which sees private companies delivering research payloads to the moon. Nelson cited the recent landing attempt by Intuitive Machines, which experienced a communications failure but was aided by a university partner.
“Morgan State [University] was uniquely positioned that it could also communicate with our government deep space communications,” Nelson explained, allowing NASA to salvage “most of the objectives of the mission” despite the mishap.
The exchange highlighted both the complexity and importance of NASA’s collaborations with private companies and academia as it pursues an accelerated timeline of new human exploration missions to the Moon and eventually Mars.
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