As the US space agency misses its launch window for the second month, smaller firms continue work on their parts
It was shaping up into another ordinary day at the Colorado headquarters of the small space startup Lunar Outpost last Friday when chief executive Justin Cyrus learned of a surprise press conference called by Jared Isaacman, the new administrator of Nasa.
Cyrus’s company epitomises the many private contractors of the space agency working on a myriad of projects crucial to the Artemis program that seeks to return humans to the moon, so anything Isaacman had to say about it was naturally of interest to him.
What he didn’t expect was the stunning announcement that Nasa was restructuring its entire strategy for the first human lunar landing in more than half a century, and was moving its astronauts to a later, scheduled 2028 launch attempt on Artemis IV.
Beset by technical issues that put the Artemis program billions of dollars over-budget and years behind schedule, as well as criticism that the agency was trying to do too much too soon, Nasa made a decision with significant consequences for its many commercial partners such as Lunar Outpost, and in the process created many more questions.
