NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced this Thursday new delays in the US space agency’s Artemis program to return astronauts to the Moon for the first time since 1972, delaying the next two planned missions, including the lunar landing.
Nelson explained in a press conference that the next Artemis mission, which will send astronauts around the Moon and back, has been delayed until April 2026, and that the lunar landing mission is planned for the following year. The delay came after NASA concluded an examination of the Orion crew capsule, made by Lockheed Martin, and its heat shield, which had malfunctioned during reentry into Earth’s atmosphere during a 2022 flight.
The Artemis program was established by NASA during the first administration of President-elect Donald Trump with the goal of returning astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the US space agency’s Apollo 17 mission. The program aims to establish a lunar base as a preliminary step to the more ambitious goal of human missions to Mars. It is estimated that the United States will spend about $93 billion on the program through 2025.
The Artemis program has made notable progress, but has also experienced various delays and increasing costs.
In 2022, NASA carried out the Artemis I mission, a 25-day uncrewed voyage around the Moon that ended when the Orion capsule, carrying a simulated crew of three dummies, successfully dived into the Pacific. During its brilliant atmospheric reentry, heat was trapped inside the outer layer of Orion’s heat shield, causing cracks and raising post-mission concerns about future models of the capsule.
Nelson said he and other senior NASA officials concluded a meeting on the heat shield this week, facing a decision on whether to have Lockheed replace and upgrade the heat shield on the Artemis II Orion capsule, or fly the capsule with the existing heat shield design but changing its re-entry path to ensure that the same heat cracks are not repeated.
The NASA chief said he and other officials unanimously decided to keep the heat shield as is and change Orion’s return trajectory for the next mission.
That was the first flight of NASA’s massive Space Launch System rocket, a powerful, over-budget vehicle tasked with launching humans into space aboard the Orion capsule. SpaceX’s Starship has been contracted to land astronauts on the moon.
The Artemis II follow-up mission, a flight that would take astronauts around the Moon in Orion but without landing, has suffered delays, including one announced by Nelson in January that pushes its schedule back to September 2025. But again Nelson has reported a new delay until April 2026. The Artemis III mission, which included a lunar landing, was delayed to September 2026 and now to mid-2027.
The race with China
NASA is using SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and other private contractors in the Artemis program. The Artemis astronauts’ trip to the Moon is planned as a relay between multiple spacecraft in space, initially launching from Earth aboard Orion and then transferring in space to the Starship system to get to and from the lunar surface.
The United States and China, an emerging power in space, compete to take astronauts to the Moon. Both nations are courting partner countries and leaning on private companies for their lunar programs.
The Artemis program has been NASA’s top priority under Nelson, but it will no longer be. Trump has chosen billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman, partner of SpaceX founder Elon Musk, to succeed Nelson at the head of NASA.
SpaceX expects rapid progress in Starship development during the second Trump administration, whose space agenda is expected to give the Artemis program greater focus on the more ambitious goal of landing people on Mars, Musk’s main space aspiration.
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