Finally happened! US Government just declared this about SpaceX Starship after the explosion!

SpaceX is in a big problem. 2023 saw the first two launches of the Starship integrated flight, but you know both of them ended in big flames. For SpaceX, this was a completely successful failure as they saw these setbacks as part of the mission's progress. Unsurprisingly, SpaceX's testing philosophy is test, fly, fail, fix, repeat. However, this is not the case for the government. As an important part of NASA Artemis to send humans back to the moon, the United States government just declared this about SpaceX Starship after the big explosion. Discuss everything about this in today's episode of TechMap. But before we begin, our team extends a warm welcome. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and enable notifications to stay up to date with the latest news from SpaceX and the world of space. With that in mind, let's jump straight into today's episode. NASA's ambitious Artemis program gave a shot in the arm for space exploration with its mission to put humans back on the moon. But now, it seems like the space agency's Artemis 3 mission, which will land astronauts on the moon, will not happen at least until 2027. The GAO report, released November 30, found that slow progress on both the human landing system, HLS Lunar Lander being developed by SpaceX and new lunar spacesuits from Axiom Space, would prevent NASA from achieving its current goal of a late 2025 landing on the Artemis mission. Much of the report's emphasis was on HLS development. SpaceX, the GAO concluded, is facing multiple issues that limit this progress and jeopardize its ability to support an Artemis 3 mission in 2025. Those issues include an ambitious schedule, a large volume of remaining work and delayed progress on its development to date. Firstly, NASA's timeline for the human landing system program is incredibly ambitious, planning to complete the program's development from project start to launch human in 79 months or six years and seven months. It turns out to be 13 months shorter than the average for NASA major projects. The complexity of human spaceflight suggests that it is unrealistic to expect the program to complete development more than a year faster than the average for NASA's major projects, the majority of which are not human spaceflight projects. Not to mention, progress was also hindered by Blue Origin's lawsuit, causing all activities to be paused. GAO found that if development took as long as the average for NASA major projects, the Artemis 3 mission would likely occur in early 2027. Second, the technical requirements of the program are very complex. The basic plan for the Artemis 3 mission involves a multi-step effort that would see a Starship fuel depot placed in orbit first, followed by multiple tankers to transfer methane and liquid oxygen into that depot. Once fully fueled, a lunar Starship will launch to rendezvous with the fuel depot before heading to the Moon. While the steps might sound straightforward, the operational techniques are required at a high level. In advance, the most powerful rocket Starship needs to be reliable in carrying humans and keep up with the high flight cadence in the mission, which could be up to 20 refueling launches per Moon landing, as NASA expects. Additionally, SpaceX must master in-orbit refueling, a feat yet to be accomplished at that scale by anyone. Of course, after that, it must land on the Moon successfully. However, currently, Starship has not yet reached orbit. Although its rapid development progress is off the table, the conflict between SpaceX and government regulators in the past seriously affected the timeline of Starship's two previous orbital test flights. And now, the consequences are becoming clearer. GAO indicated this in its report, saying that SpaceX's work on HLS was going at a slower pace than projected, taking more than half the overall schedule to reach the preliminary design review milestone, versus an average of 35% for major NASA projects. SpaceX has delayed multiple key events, not specified in the report, from 2023 to 2024, compressing the remaining schedule. As of September 2023, the Human Landing System program had delayed eight of 13 key events by at least six months. Two of these events have been delayed to 2025, the year the lander is planned to launch. Given such challenges, conducting dozens of test launches and developing so many important technologies in such a tight timeframe seems unfeasible, and GAO has a similar view. To avoid the same problem in the future, GAO issued a report recommending that the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation comprehensively evaluate its processes for investigating launch mishaps, including developing criteria for when those investigations should be led by the lunch operator. According to the report, FAA relies on the operator-led approach, agency officials told us because, given highly specialized vehicle designs among companies, the agency does not have adequate resources for in-house investigations, those officials estimated that an agency-led investigation might take 10 to 20 times longer because the FAA lacks the intimate knowledge of vehicle design needed to effectively investigate mishaps. Hopefully, through GAO's comments, the FAA can improve its process to accommodate the rapidly increasing commercial launch context. Anyway, while waiting for that good context to come at present, SpaceX has been working around the clock to complete the Artemis 3 mission despite many obstacles. This shows their strong determination to prove that NASA's selection in 2021 is completely wise. In September, the media recorded the image of a Starship's nose cone that was outfitted with supposedly life-support systems and a door to access a mock-up of the crew interior for development of the crew's Starship HLS variant. Simultaneously, we also saw Ship 26, which had no flaps, payload bay, or heat shield, seemingly as the first full-scale human landing system mock-up. On October 21, SpaceX conducted a single-engine static fire on Ship 26 that demonstrated flight-like startup for a Starship deorbit burn. On December 7, the prototype was seen in the rocket garden and was hooked up to a crane. At the time I made this report, the information about its next steps remains mysterious. But the only thing I can ensure is that in August, SpaceX ran successfully the Vacuum Raptor engine ACE's cold space test as a part of the preparation for Artemis. The test confirmed the engine can be started in the extreme cold conditions resulting from extended time in space. Back in November 2021, the company also achieved one of the first test milestones under the Artemis 3 contract, which was also an engine test, demonstrating the Raptor's ability to perform the critical phase when landing on the Moon. In a 281-second-long test firing, Raptor demonstrated the powered descent portion of the mission when the Starship HLS leaves its orbit over the lunar surface and begins its descent to the Moon's surface to land. So far, SpaceX is almost on the threshold of IFT3's launch date when they could attempt propellant transfer demonstration, which is essential for future missions to the Moon and Mars. Ship 28 and Booster 10 have been cryo-tested at Massey's already, both of which are ready for another at the launch site, but could also move to static fire testing sooner than previous flows. Everything seems to be going smoothly. The point, in this case, is there's going to be a big improvement in the timeline that we saw between IFT1 and 2, thanks to the padmods and how well the second flight performed. With positive signals like the present, I'm pretty sure that the next test flights of Starship will occur more frequently, and the day it reaches orbit successfully is not in too distant future. However, the success of Starship does not mean 100% that Artemis 3 will take place on schedule. You should forget or should not forget that the Axiom spacesuit also plays a significant role. The GAO report also suggested potential delays in the development of those suits by Axiom. The company is still in the early stages of suit development, with a preliminary design review scheduled for November. As of November 30, neither NASA nor Axiom had reported the completion of that review. The report stated that Axiom planned to redesign portions of the suit, based on a design previously developed by NASA, to meet agency requirements that the suit provide 60 minutes of emergency life support capabilities that could delay the overall development of the spacesuit, it warned. Axiom's remaining work to develop and procure suit components risks potential delays, the GAO stated. That includes supply chain challenges such as critical components from suppliers that have lead times of 12 to 18 months. And that just about wraps it up for today's episode. Make sure you subscribe to the channel and turn on the notification feature so you don't miss any space important updates. Your support is our driving force to continue delivering high quality content. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you next time.