The moon will have to wait. The American space agency NASA announced this Tuesday the delay in its schedule for the Artemis project of manned flights to the satellite, a program intended to serve as the first step towards the arrival of humans on Mars. At a press conference in Washington, its administrator Bill Nelson announced that the Artemis II mission, which was supposed to put astronauts into lunar orbit for the first time in half a century in September this year, will be postponed to September 2025.
The Artemis III mission, which was supposed to take the four selected astronauts to land on the moon's south pole in 2025, has been postponed to September 2026. The Artemis IV mission maintains its planned launch date of 2028.
“In order to give the Artemis teams more time to solve the challenges that arise for the first time in the operation, development and integration (of the project), we will give more time to the Artemis II and III missions” Nelson announced.
The first mission, Artemis I, was successfully completed in December 2022. Then the Orion capsule, launched without cargo, orbited the moon and returned to Earth on time and as planned. Five months later, the special agency announced the astronauts selected for the first manned mission, Artemis II: Canadian Jeremy Hansen and Americans Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover. Koch and Glover are the first woman and first black person, respectively, to participate in a lunar mission.
The decision announced by Nelson represents a blow to America's space illusions, which rely on the Artemis missions to revive among citizens the space epic lived fifty years ago and a leadership role in a race to conquer infinity and beyond take over. increasingly controversial. During this time, China has become a rival fighting for first place in just a few years.
But for weeks the postponement was taken for granted. In November, the space agency's inspector general flagged a number of problems in the program that needed to be addressed to continue the ambitious and very expensive project. Among other things, the report pointed out that the thermal envelope designed to protect the Orion capsule from the heat and friction created by friction with the atmosphere during its descent to Earth's surface was “worn more than expected” on Artemis I. . , the massive platform designed to transport, support and launch the colossal SLS rocket designed to take Orion out of Earth's orbit, also suffered more damage than estimated for the 2022 launch.
In addition to the setbacks for the calendar, the spacesuits specially adapted for the moon that the Artemis crew needs for their mission and for which the companies Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace are responsible are not yet ready. The moon landing based on SpaceX's spacecraft is also not yet finished.
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