NASA delays highly anticipated Artemis lunar missions, cites safety

A highly anticipated lunar orbit and a return to the moon by humans after more than 50 years are being pushed back.

NASA announced on Tuesday that it will delay the launch of the Artemis II mission that was slated for November 2024 to September 2025 to give more time to prepare, citing safety.

“Safety is our top priority, and to give Artemis teams more time to work through the challenges with first-time development, operations and integration, we’re going to give more time on Artemis II and III,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said Tuesday.

The Artemis II mission would see four astronauts, including Canadian Jeremy Hansen, go around the moon.

The announcement confirms some media reports this week that had said, citing anonymous sources, that NASA was pushing back the Artemis II mission.

The launch of Artemis III — a two-person lunar landing that was planned for late 2025 — will now take place in September 2026, Nelson said.

However, the Artemis IV mission remains on track for September 2028.

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Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars program, said NASA came to this decision based on the Artemis I test flight and from the production and assembly of components for the subsequent Artemis II and III missions.

“From the test flight in particular, we had … I would say one major finding that we need a little bit more time to work and that is the performance of the thermal protection system on the spacecraft and the heat shield,” Kshatriya said.

NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free said they are facing technical challenges but the Artemis team is working on solving those issues.

“As we prepare to send our friends and colleagues on this mission, we’re committed to launching as safely as possible, and we will launch when we’re ready,” Free said.

“We learned a great deal during Artemis I, and continue to learn today through the production of Artemis II, III, IV and all the hardware we have in flow and we plan to put those lessons back into our future missions.”

Hansen, of London, Ont., is among the four-person crew selected for the Artemis II mission and will become the only non-American to leave Earth’s orbit when the mission blasts off.

The Canadian government has pledged $1.9 billion toward the cost of the Lunar Gateway space station that is being built as part of the mission, which includes the cost of the Canadian seat on the Artemis II mission as well as a second potential seat on a voyage to the Lunar Gateway in the future.

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Astronauts last visited the moon in December 1972, closing out the Apollo program.

Artemis II is “the first crewed flight test on the agency’s path to establishing a long-term scientific and human presence on the lunar surface,” according to NASA.

This builds on the success of Artemis I, an unmanned flight that travelled on a 1.4-million-mile journey beyond the moon, returning to Earth after 25 days in December 2022.

If the Artemis II mission is successful, it will be the first time humans get that close to the moon since the Apollo program more than 50 years ago.

With the Artemis missions, NASA aims to “explore more of the lunar surface than ever before” and establish “the first long-term presence on the moon.”

The end goal is to go to Mars by the late 2030s – but that might also be delayed now.