NASA delays both Artemis II and III moon missions

NASA announced it has delayed both the crewed Artemis II mission set to fly around the moon and the Artemis III mission that aims to send the next humans including the first woman back to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972.

“We are doing something incredibly different in the process of all this as we remind everybody at every turn, safety is our top priority to give Artemis teams more time to work through the challenges with first-time developments, operations and integration,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “We’re going to give more time on Artemis II and III.”

Artemis II was supposed to fly as early as November this year, but now won’t fly until at least 10 months later targeting September 2025.

Artemis III was on NASA’s roadmap to fly as early as December 2025, but now is targeting September 2026.

Nelson said Artemis IV, which aims to be the first flight to support NASA’s lunar Gateway space station, is still on the roadmap for September 2028.

“Although challenges are clearly ahead, our teams are making incredible progress,” Nelson said.

The Artemis I mission that launched on a successful test flight at the end of 2022 sent the Orion spacecraft on a weeks-long mission around the moon testing out its ability to survive the nearly 5,000-degree Fahrenheit reentry.

Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Moon to Mars Program in the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate said that issues with that heat shield are among the reasons for the delay.

“What we did see in the performance of the of the heat shield itself was some unexpected phenomenon that we need to make sure we understand perfectly,” he said.

He also mentioned some hardware related to the life support system that failed acceptance testing and needs to be replaced for both flights.

“Even though we really want to fly, we want to play it as safely as we can with the delay,” he said.

The crew for Artemis II was announced last year and will continue to train for what will be about an eight-day mission. Flying are NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

This is a breaking news story. More details to come.