NASA Presses on With Artemis as Questions Swirl About the Future

NASA awarded study contracts to nine companies today for lunar surface mobility and logistics concepts to support the Artemis program. Three days into the second Trump Administration, questions are swirling about the future of Artemis and other NASA programs. The surprise decision to appoint Janet Petro instead of Jim Free as Acting Administrator and yesterday’s directive to immediately eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) jobs and offices at NASA and throughout the government are adding to the atmosphere of uncertainty.

The future of Artemis is a particular topic of debate because of speculation the Trump Administration will try to alter NASA’s ongoing program and skip the Moon and go straight to Mars. President Trump’s promise to send astronauts to Mars during his inaugural address and his close association with Mars advocate Elon Musk are fueling that anxiety even though Trump didn’t mention a timetable or strategy for achieving that goal.

For the moment, at least, NASA seems to be proceeding with the existing Artemis Moon-to-Mars plan. Today it awarded contracts to nine companies in seven states to “propose innovative strategies and concepts for logistics and mobility solutions” for long-term lunar exploration.

• Blue Origin, Merritt Island, Florida – logistical carriers; logistics handling and offloading; logistics transfer; staging, storage, and tracking; surface cargo and mobility; and integrated strategies
• Intuitive Machines, Houston, Texas – logistics handling and offloading; and surface cargo and mobility
• Leidos, Reston, Virginia – logistical carriers; logistics transfer; staging, storage, and tracking; trash management; and integrated strategies
• Lockheed Martin, Littleton, Colorado – logistical carriers; logistics transfer; and surface cargo and mobility
• MDA Space, Houston – surface cargo and mobility
• Moonprint, Dover, Delaware – logistical carriers
• Pratt Miller Defense, New Hudson, Michigan – surface cargo and mobility
• Sierra Space, Louisville, Colorado – logistical carriers; logistics transfer; staging, storage, and tracking; trash management; and integrated strategies
• Special Aerospace Services, Huntsville, Alabama – logistical carriers; logistics handling and offloading; logistics transfer; staging, storage, and tracking; trash management; surface cargo and mobility; and integrated strategies

While it’s early days in the Trump Administration, it seems quite unlikely the contracts would have been issued without the new administration’s knowledge and consent. It is firmly in control of the Executive Branch as demonstrated yesterday by requiring all departments and agencies, including NASA, to immediately eliminate their offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI — sometimes “accessibility” is added at the end for DEIA). Employees working in those jobs were put on paid administrative leave until they can be permanently dismissed through what the government calls a reduction-in-force.

Based on past presidential transitions, NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free was expected to serve as Acting Administrator until a new Administrator is confirmed by the Senate, but in what was apparently a surprise even to them, the White House named Kennedy Space Center Director Janet Petro. She was the one who had to sign the letter to employees, drafted by the Office of Personnel Management for all agencies, announcing the end of DEI activities and asserting “These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination.” The letter also directed workers to report any efforts since election day to “disguise these programs” within 10 days or there might be “adverse consequences.”  NASAWatch’s Keith Cowing posted the letter on X (@NASAWatch).

Looks like Acting @NASA Administrator Janet Petro has bought into this #Diversity erasure at #NASA.

Her words. pic.twitter.com/PPi4jurUYs

— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) January 22, 2025

Trump’s supporters said he would begin his second term with “shock and awe” Executive Orders and that certainly seems to be the case for the government as a whole. What he has in mind for NASA, specifically, is up in the air.

During a Washington Space Business Roundtable webinar yesterday featuring top space reporters, Jeff Foust of Space News and Joey Roulette of Reuters both cited Artemis as a key area of uncertainty.

Trump has nominated billionaire Jared Isaacman to be NASA Administrator. He financed and flew two trips to Earth orbit as a commercial astronaut on SpaceX spacecraft (with two more flights pending) and “it’s logical to assume he will try to take more advantage” of commercial capabilities, Foust said, but “how that will take shape and what obstacles he will faces remain to be seen.”

“Certainly trying to rework or even discard Artemis in favor of a purely commercial architecture is going to run into a lot of roadblocks from … the established space industry and also members of Congress whose districts and states might be adversely affected by such a change.” — Jeff Foust

Foust and Roulette pointed out Musk’s SpaceX is deeply involved in the Artemis program, so any changes would affect his business, too.  SpaceX is building the Starship Human Landing System that will be used for the first two Artemis landings (Artemis III and IV) and has a contract to provide logistics support for the Gateway lunar space station. Many other companies have contracts, too.

“It’s not just switching up a program and that’s that. I mean there are so many other contracts as well embedded in the Artemis program like SLS [Space Launch System]. For all the political views on whether SLS should remain, there are contracts in place and how you cancel those contracts is a very delicate legal situation that I think, inevitably, you have pushback, legal pushback in the courts if there’s an attempt to cancel something.” — Joey Roulette

Roulette brought up the international aspects of the Artemis program.  NASA has heralded the program from the beginning as a departure from the U.S. Government-only Apollo program. Artemis is designed to bring in commercial and international partners.  Three of the four International Space Station partners — Canada, Japan and 11 European countries working through the European Space Agency — and the United Arab Emirates already have signed agreements to build portions of the Gateway lunar space station.

In addition, in 2020 during the first Trump Administration, the United States along with several other countries crafted a set of principles for responsible behavior on the Moon called the Artemis Accords. They are open to all nations to sign whether or not they want to participate in Artemis or have any space exploration plans of their own. On Tuesday, Finland became the 53rd country to sign.

Roulette wonders if the Accords fit within Trump’s “America First” agenda, however. In the past space has been a “tool for diplomacy that connects countries,” but the landscape is changing with the growing prominence of commercial space activities. SpaceX already has a strong international interest in getting foreign regulatory approval to provide Starlink broadband Internet satellite services and Amazon’s Project Kuiper system will soon. Those commercial interests could be “changing that sanctity of space.”

Not only that, but as Breaking Defense’s Theresa Hitchens explained there is growing U.S. interest in putting offensive weapons in space. Roulette posed that could undercut the Accords.

“I’ve just heard some speculation that one of the reasons that the Artemis Accords might not continue is because of an emphasis on the … military aspect of the U.S. space enterprise instead of international diplomacy.” — Joey Roulette

It may well be that clarity on NASA’s future will have to wait until Isaacman is confirmed to be NASA’s 15th Administrator, as is expected. His nomination was formally submitted to the Senate on Tuesday, but no date has been announced for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.