NASA’s Orion program is being led by a Washington state native who is helping shape the next phase of the agency’s push to return humans to the moon.
Howard Hu, NASA’s Orion program manager, grew up in Shoreline and graduated from the University of Washington. Hu leads the design, development, production, and operations of Orion, NASA’s next-generation human exploration spacecraft for the Artemis missions to the Moon.
As NASA plans for future Artemis missions, Hu said the agency is preparing for another test flight in Earth’s orbit to reduce risk and prove new capabilities needed for future lunar landings, which will be Artemis III.
“We’re going to do another test flight that will be in the vicinity of earth orbit, where there’s low earth orbit or high earth orbit,” Hu said. “It’s to give us a chance to buy down additional risk for other capabilities for example, Artemis III will introduce rendezvous and docking capability and of course introduce the lander that we’ve been working with SpaceX and Blue on.”
Hu said those steps are necessary because Orion will no longer fly alone for landing missions. Instead, the spacecraft will need to meet up with a lunar lander, transfer astronauts, and support the complex coordination required for a descent to the moon’s surface.
“We want to make sure we’re able to do the dance that we would need to do on the moon and make sure we have that interaction correctly, especially when now we have another spacecraft that we will engage in,” Hu said. “Orion right now flies by itself to the moon, but certainly when we talk about landings we will meet up with a lunar lander and we transfer the crew to that lunar lander and then they go down to the surface. All that work needs to be tested, as well, in orbit.”
Artemis III is planned for 2027 and is expected to be another flight test. Artemis IV is planned for 2028, when humans are expected to land on the moon again.