Nasa says its Artemis mission to put astronauts back on the Moon will be further delayed.
The space agency found problems with the heat shield on the Orion spacecraft that will eventually carry humans back to the lunar surface.
It said that it had found a fix to that problem. But it will require a different trajectory and yet more delays to the mission schedule.
Nasa said an extensive investigation of the Artemis I program heat shield issue showed the Artemis II heat shield can keep the crew safe during the planned mission with changes to Orion’s trajectory as it enters Earth’s atmosphere, slowing from nearly 25,000 mph to about 325 miles per hour before its parachutes are released for safe splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
It noted that it will continue to stick its Space Launch System rocket elements, and prepare it for integration with Orion for Artemis II.
“The Artemis campaign is the most daring, technically challenging, collaborative, international endeavor humanity has ever set out to do,” Administrator Bill Nelson said in a post on X. “And we are committed to ensuring that when we go, we go safely. That’s what today’s decision is about—and how Artemis succeeds.”
The next mission – Artemis II, which will see humans fly around but not onto the Moon – has been pushed back by seven months, to April 2026. Artemis III, which will actually see humans descend onto the Moon, will be delayed until 2027.
It is the latest in a run of delays for the mission. The first, uncrewed Artemis mission had originally been due to fly in 2016 – but a series of issues meant that it did not actually happen until 2022.
“Victor, Christina, Jeremy, and I have been following every aspect of this decision and we are thankful for the openness of NASA to weigh all options and make decisions in the best interest of human spaceflight,” Reid Wiseman, NASA astronaut and Artemis II commander, said in a statement. “We were at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida recently and put eyes on our SLS rocket boosters, the core stage, and the Orion spacecraft. It is inspiring to see the scale of this effort, to meet the people working on this machine, and we can’t wait to fly it to the Moon.”
Wiseman, along with NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will fly aboard the 10-day Artemis II test flight around the Moon and back.
The delay also comes amid scrutiny of Nasa’s plans for the years to come. Nasa announced the latest update on the Artemis mission just a day after Donald Trump announced that he had chosen Jared Isaacman, who is close to Trump ally and SpaceX head Elon Musk, as his pick to run the space agency.
