What’s holding up US plans to go back to the moon? An argument over pre-flight meetings.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson says he can’t firm up plans to return Americans to the moon by 2024 until a lawsuit against the space agency, brought by Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin, is resolved. The suit contends that NASA should not have chosen Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build a lander that will carry astronauts to the lunar surface.
Specifically, the suit hinges on “flight readiness reviews,” or FRRs, which are comprehensive briefings about every aspect of a space mission. They take place soon before a launch and represent the final approval to go ahead with a mission.
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