Will NASA's big rocket, the Space Launch System, be either officially or unofficially cancelled before Jan 1, 2026?
Here cancelling means that there will no longer be an active and funded plan to launch it again. It is currently scheduled to be flown for Artemis 2 in September, 2025. Delaying that launch to a defined date in the future would not be interpreted as a cancellation, but delaying it to an vague "yet to be specified" date may be, if done in conjunction with other info pointing to cancellation.
Because an "unofficial" cancelling may include some ambiguity, I will not be participate in this market. An unoffical cancellation does not require major contracts to be terminated in 2025, but there is the expectation that they will be in future calendar years.
Resolves YES if the decision for SLS to not fly again is made before 2026. Resolves NO if the status quo continues.
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@CommanderZander with this proposal Artemis 2 and 3 would still happen though, this would not count as canceled for this market.
@CommanderZander to be blunt, you're interpreting it wrong then. I think I was pretty clear with:
Here cancelling means that there will no longer be an active and funded plan to launch it again.
and with
Resolves YES if the decision for SLS to not fly again is made before 2026.
If we hit the end of 2025 and there are still concrete plans to launch another SLS, then this market will resolve NO at year's end.
That said, I think there's still significant reason to bet YES here (with the right odds)! I think it's quite possible that Artemis II flies this year with SLS*, but SpaceX makes impressive strides with the next few Starship launches, and by year's end NASA is saying, "We're definitely going to do Artemis III, but we're considering our options about whether we can do it cheaper and sooner with a different rocket..." and meanwhile insiders are all saying that SLS is toast...
Do I think that's likely at this point? Nah. But possible.
* Edit: Or Artemis II doesn't fly, due to some embarrassing cock-up...
@StepanBakhmarin Eric Berger, a space reporter for ArsTechnica and author of two books about SpaceX, tweeted this:
https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/1864419205405159821?t=LqndF_xFlEzBxRXMSvtVMA&s=19
putting the odds at 75% for cancellation.
He's very pro SpaceX ... but he's widely respected and has great sources. I expect there's some fire to go with the smoke.