Assessing the Decision to Cancel Block 1B

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced a sweeping roadmap change to the Artemis program this morning—seemingly cancelling the EUS, Gateway, and all SLS upgrades, and instead pursuing the once-and-future annual launch cadence of SLS.

This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 33 executive producers—David, Russell, Pat, Better Every Day Studios, Joonas, Josh from Impulse, Theo and Violet, Steve, Jan, Will and Lars from Agile, Miles O’Brien, Kris, Fred, Stealth Julian, Frank, Joakim, Ryan, Warren, Matt, The Astrogators at SEE, Joel, Lee, Tim Dodd (the Everyday Astronaut!), Donald, Natasha Tsakos, Heiko, and four anonymous—and hundreds of supporters.

Topics

• NASA shakes up its Artemis program to speed up lunar return - Ars Technica
• NASA Adds Mission to Artemis Lunar Program, Updates Architecture - NASA
• NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman on X: “President Trump gave the world the Artemis Program, and NASA and our partners have the plan to deliver. We will standardize architecture where possible, add missions and accelerate flight rate, execute in an evolutionary way, and safely return American astronauts to the Moon…”
• NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman on X: “…and this is how we’re going back.”
• Teams Begin Artemis II Repairs in Vehicle Assembly Building - NASA

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