NASA's canceled Artemis hardware contracts reached $5.9 billion, audit finds

A new memo from NASA's Office of Inspector General has revealed how major pieces of Artemis program hardware became costly components of lunar missions that no longer align with the agency's new plans to return astronauts to the moon and have since been canceled. NASA announced a major shakeup to its Artemis plans earlier this year at its "Ignition Day" event , restructuring its mission goals in order to streamline the return of astronauts to the lunar surface and simplify the architecture needed to get them there. Most notably, the program's first crewed moon landing was shifted from Artemis 3 to Artemis 4 , and upgraded variations of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket were abandoned for a single uniform design. The Gateway space station planned for lunar orbit was also canceled in favor of a stronger focus on establishing a base on the moon's surface. The switch-up left behind a trail of expensive hardware, including SLS's upgraded Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) and the adapter meant to fit it to the SLS rocket, a larger launch tower, and Gateway's Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) module. Now, an interim Office of Inspector General (OIG) memo released June 24 offers a striking snapshot of just what NASA is walking away from. …