NASA Advisory Council Hears about Lunar Orbit Shakedown Cruise, December 2015

The NASA Advisory Council (NAC) met at NASA’s Johnson Space Center on December 1-3, 2015.   It heard presentations from NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Bill Gerstenmaier and ISS Program Director Sam Scimemi about NASA’s plans for human spaceflight especially in the 2020s.   NASA revealed that it is planning a one year “shakedown cruise” in lunar orbit around 2029 to test hardware and crews before sending them on an even longer mission to Mars.  Such missions will require development of a habitation module in addition to the Orion spacecraft.  NASA is considering whether a single monolithic module should be developed or something that could be launched in smaller pieces and assembled in orbit.  They also discussed NASA’s plans for low Earth orbit (LEO) after the International Space Station (ISS) ceases operations.  

SpacePolicyOnline.com published a summary of the meeting on December 7 under the title “NAC Hears About Lunar Orbit Shakedown Cruise, Worries About Readiness for New Administration.”