NASA needs to hire more astronauts and change the way it trains them, according to a new report from the space agency’s inspector general reported by News 6 partner Florida Today.
NASA’s Astronaut Office currently focuses its efforts on ensuring enough astronauts are trained and ready to crew the International Space Station. And it has been doing so in a post-shuttle era when NASA could only send astronauts to space as passengers on Russian rockets.
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But with moon missions looming and growing numbers of vehicles capable of launching humans to space, the agency needs to increase its number of astronauts, reconsider what skillsets those astronauts will need and change the ISS-centric focus of its current training regimen, the report says.
“NASA’s Astronaut Office faces several challenges at this moment in time, including meeting the Agency’s goal of deep space travel; maintaining and expanding a low Earth orbit presence, in particular on the International Space Station (ISS or Station); executing space flight missions on multiple vehicles; and aiding in the design and development of systems for Artemis missions to the Moon,” the reports says.
As of September, NASA had 44 “flight-ready” astronauts, down from a peak of 150 in 2000, the report said.
NASA assesses the size its astronaut corps every year. In recent years, that has meant having enough astronauts ready to fill available ISS seats for the next five years. It builds in a “safety margin” of 15% to account for attrition, crew skills mix and medical qualifications.
NASA forecasts that the number of astronauts will fall below its targeted size this year and next. The process of recruiting, hiring and providing basic training for an astronaut takes about four years.
“In light of the expanding space flight opportunities anticipated for the Artemis missions, the corps might be at risk of being misaligned in the future, resulting in disruptive crew reorganizations or mission delays,” the report reads.
NASA selected 10 new astronaut candidates in December. They begin training this month. It was the first new astronaut class since 2017. It is not only the number of astronauts that NASA needs to worry about, the report says, but also the skill sets of each.
The earliest astronauts were all test pilots, but over the years NASA expanded the corps to include scientists, medical doctors, engineers and others with specialized skills. The agency is working now to identify the skill sets astronauts will need for the upcoming Artemis moon missions.
But the agency doesn’t maintain a database of each astronaut’s skills; instead, it leans on personal knowledge of those in charge of the astronaut office. But that might not be feasible as the corps grows, the report found.
Nor does NASA maintain detailed demographic information about astronauts, making it hard to assess whether the agency is meeting its diversity goals.
The report also said NASA needs to adapt its training regimen to prepare for the Artemis moon missions.
“As the Agency prepares for crewed Artemis missions, astronaut training needs will change. As with sizing, the current astronaut training framework is primarily aligned to ISS mission requirements,” the report said. “The Astronaut Office is in the process of developing a framework for Artemis training, but this framework has not been formally chartered nor have any Artemis crews been announced. As such, specific mission-focused training for the Artemis II mission—the first crewed Artemis flight—has not yet begun.”
NASA estimates that training for Artemis missions will take two years.
Kathy Lueders, who leads NASA’s Human Spaceflight Office, concurred with the report and said the agency is expected to fulfill all its recommendations this year.