Legacy Aerospace Giants Secure Victory as Senate Passes Bill Boosting NASA’s Artemis Program
On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed President Trump’s budget reconciliation bill, allocating an additional $10 billion to NASA’s Artemis program. This funding injection is a significant win for traditional aerospace companies involved in the program.
The bolstered Artemis architecture will see increased support for the Space Launch System (SLS) rockets and the development of an orbiting station known as Gateway around the moon. This move is a clear rejection of critics, including SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who have advocated for alternative technologies to be utilized instead.
However, tensions between Musk and Trump show no sign of easing. The fallout between the two escalated following the president’s sudden withdrawal of Isaacman’s nomination for NASA administrator. If Trump signs the bill, the rift between Musk and the administration is likely to persist or even intensify.
Musk has been a vocal critic of the SLS rocket, pointing out its lack of reusability compared to SpaceX’s fleet of reusable rockets. He has raised concerns about the exorbitant cost of each SLS launch, with some estimates suggesting recurring production costs of up to $2.5 billion per launch.
Despite the hefty investment of around $24 billion in SLS production so far, with major aerospace players like Boeing, L3Harris’ Aerojet Rocketdyne, and Northrop Grumman leading the charge, Isaacman has questioned the sustainability of such spending. While he supports using SLS for upcoming Artemis missions, he believes it is not a viable long-term solution for lunar and Mars exploration.
The bill allocates $4.1 billion for additional SLS rockets for Artemis missions 4 and 5, with a further $2.6 billion earmarked for the completion of the Gateway station. This decision disregards Trump’s earlier proposal to phase out SLS and Orion spacecraft after the completion of Artemis III, a move that was put forward before the fallout between Musk and the administration.
In addition to funding for Artemis, the bill includes $700 million for a Mars Telecommunications Orbiter, $1.25 billion for extended operation of the International Space Station, and $325 million allocated to SpaceX for the development of a spacecraft to de-orbit the ISS by the end of the decade, with a total award of $843 million for this project.
