"We have gotten to a root cause," said Lakiesha Hawkins, assistant deputy associate administrator for NASA's Moon to Mars program office, in response to a question from Ars on Monday at the Wernher von Braun Space Exploration Symposium.

"We are having conversations within the agency to make sure that we have a good understanding of not only what's going on with the heat shield, but also next steps and how that actually applies to the course that we take for Artemis II," she said. "And we'll be in a position to be able to share where we are with that hopefully before the end of the year.”

Speaking at a meeting of lunar scientists Monday, Glaze said NASA wants to complete additional testing before a final determination on what to do with Artemis II. The final decision, she said, will be made by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

"We expect that additional testing to conclude by the end of November, and then we anticipate discussions with the administrator, who will make the final decision on how to proceed," Glaze said. "I know we all want more information faster, sooner, better. We're moving it as quickly as it possibly can move, and there will be decisions forthcoming."

An attendee of the lunar science meeting in Houston asked Glaze if she could share the root cause of the heat shield erosion. “I’m not going to share right now," she replied. "When it comes out, it’ll all come out together.”

While evidence for this microbial life is yet to have been found, a new NASA study from a group of scientists proposes that these microbes can survive beneath frozen water ice on the Martian surface.

More specifically, the team suggests that the amount of sunlight that would shine through the water ice and into shallow pools under the ice would be enough for any microbes to perform photosynthesis. The team utilized computer modeling to make their proposal, and pools of water similar to these Martian pools have been found on Earth to contain algae, fungi, and microscopic cyanobacteria — all of which perform photosynthesis.

Around 83 percent of NASA's facilities are beyond their design lifetimes, and the agency has a $3.3 billion backlog in maintenance. When you consider NASA's $250 million estimate for normal year-to-year maintenance, it would take a $600 million uptick in NASA's annual budget for infrastructure repairs to catch up on the backlog within the next 10 years.

"Worst" in terms of being overdue for repairs, not that they don't produce great work.