NASA has made things official by saying that it won’t be sticking to the timeline decided during the Trump administration for its Artemis mission, which will put astronauts on the lunar surface by 2024.
“It’s clear to me the agency will need to make serious changes,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in a call with reporters. He said the Artemis II mission, which is supposed to carry astronauts around the Moon without landing, is now targeted to launch no sooner than May 2024. Artemis III, the first crewed landing on the Moon, will likely happen in 2025.
Several reasons behind the delay
NASA noted that it has “lost seven months in litigation,” referring to complaints and a lawsuit filed by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Dynetics after the space agency awarded SpaceX with a huge contract to develop the lunar lander for the Artemis program.
Nelson also cited time lost due to the pandemic, and added that the goal of putting humans on the Moon again by 2024 “was not grounded in technical feasibility.” It has been almost five decades since humans last stepped on the lunar surface.
NASA has committed to ferry the first female astronaut to the Moon through Artemis and use the mission to establish a permanent presence on the Moon while also working towards the first human landing on the Red Planet.
Other NASA missions in place
Besides, NASA has also finalized the landing site for a new lunar explorer. The space agency will send a robotic lander to the Moon’s South Pole in an area close to the Shackleton crater. The Nova-C lander will be developed by the company called Intuitive Machines. The space agency chose this area of the south pole because it is said to feature ice below the surface.
After spending tens of billions developing its super-heavy Space Launch System (SLS) to go to the Moon, NASA wants private space companies to keep the doomed system running for the next 3 decades. Will a private company take over the project remains to be seen.
