Feedback during two recent Moon to Mars architecture workshops attended by international space agencies, U.S. industry, and academic institutions is providing unique input to NASA’s Moon to Mars architecture approach.
Feedback during two recent Moon to Mars architecture workshops attended by international space agencies, U.S. industry, and academic institutions is providing unique input to NASA’s Moon to Mars architecture approach.
The workshops, held in June in London and Washington, reviewed the outcomes released in April from NASA’s Architecture Concept Review, and sought comments from the space community on the agency’s new process for developing the Moon to Mars architecture for the future of U.S.-led human spaceflight efforts in deep space.
“One of the goals for our new process for Moon to Mars architecture development is to seek feedback along the way, and the workshops validated our approach to getting input and perspectives from a wide range of organizations as technologies and capabilities mature,” said Cathy Koerner, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD). “In the two months between when NASA released its inaugural Architecture Concept Review documents and our workshops, participants did their homework and came prepared to have honest and open dialog.”
NASA’s Moon to Mars Architecture Concept Review is an annual architecture development process comprising internal studies and analyses, information sharing and feedback exchange with international space agencies, U.S. industry, and academia, and culminates in a comprehensive multi-day review. Following the 2022 Architecture Concept Review, NASA released the Architecture Definition Document that details the results of the 2022 studies, along with six white papers on topics of frequent interest. Feedback from the June workshops will inform NASA’s second concept review this fall.
“Because the architecture is expressed as an evolving framework and not a manifest or a mechanism for procurement, participants in our recent workshops largely wanted to learn how to become more involved and what they could provide to support future missions,” said Nujoud Merancy, strategy and architecture lead for NASA’s ESDMD. “We established this new architecture development approach to be transparent and ensure a vital feedback loop with our current partners and all potential future partners. This is just the start, and we have a very positive benchmark that indicates we are on the right track.”
Through Artemis, NASA is working with U.S. companies, international space agencies, and academic institutions to provide key elements of missions to the Moon, including hardware, systems, and science instruments. Through the workshops, industry participants were able to gain insights to inform business interests in Moon and Mars exploration, academic institutions took interest in opportunities to shape the future STEM workforce through collaborative design and flight opportunities with NASA, and international agencies learned about ways they could get involved in future Moon to Mars collaboration with NASA.
Learn more about NASA’s Moon to Mars architecture at: