Artemis: NASA delays mission to send astronauts around the moon

The US space agency NASA has announced further delays in its plan to send astronauts back to the moon.

The second mission of the Artemis program was now scheduled to launch in April 2026, agency chief Bill Nelson said.

The plan was to send astronauts around the moon in September 2025, but not on Earth.

That would mean landings on the moon wouldn’t happen until at least 2027, a year later than originally planned.

The delay is needed to fix a problem with the capsule’s heat shield, which was badly burned and chipped from the previous test flight, with cracks and some pieces breaking off.

“The safety of our astronauts is our north star,” Mr Nelson told a news conference.

“We don’t fly until we’re ready. We need to do the next test flight, and we need to do it right. And that’s how the Artemis program goes.”

Mr Nelson said engineers had got to the root of the problem and believed it could be fixed by changing the capsule’s re-entry speed – but it would take time to fully assess it.

NASA is in a race with the Chinese space agency, which has its own plans to send astronauts to the moon. Mr. Nelson said he was confident the Artemis program would be the first to reach the lunar surface, but called on NASA’s commercial and international partners to “double down to meet and improve that schedule.” Go”.

“We plan to launch Artemis 3 in mid-2027. That would be far ahead of the Chinese government’s stated intention which they have already publicly stated is 2030.”

But additional delays will increase pressure on government-run NASA – whose rocket system to send astronauts to the moon, the Space Launch System (SLS), has been criticized as expensive and slow to develop.

This is in stark contrast to Elon Musk’s private sector firm, SpaceX, which is pushing ahead with efforts to build its own, ultimately much cheaper and reusable Starship rocket.

President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Jared Isaacman to succeed Mr. Nelson as NASA chief has fueled fears that major changes to NASA’s Moon program are expected.

Mr. Isaacman is a billionaire and close associate of Mr. Musk, who has paid for two private sector missions that have taken him into space. According to Open University space scientist Dr Simon Barber, his business style could prove a shock to the NASA system.

“The SLS is an old-school rocket. It’s not reusable like Starship, so it’s very expensive, and it took a long time to operate. Looking to save costs.

“Isaacman is going to bring a fresh pair of eyes to the way NASA works. And it’s hard to predict what this combination of Isaacman, Musk and Trump will mean for NASA as we know it.”