NASA Delays Manned Artemis Moon Mission Landing to 2026, Administrator Says

© AP Photo / John RaouxThe NASA moon rocket stands ready less than 24 hours before it is scheduled to launch on Pad 39B for the Artemis 1 mission to orbit the moon at the Kennedy Space Center, Sunday, Aug. 28, 2022, in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The NASA moon rocket stands ready less than 24 hours before it is scheduled to launch on Pad 39B for the Artemis 1 mission to orbit the moon at the Kennedy Space Center, Sunday, Aug. 28, 2022, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. - Sputnik Africa, 1920, 10.01.2024
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WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - In 2019, NASA announced the project of the lunar program Artemis, which consists of three stages - the unmanned flight of the Orion spacecraft around the Moon and its return to Earth; the flight of the ship with the crew on board around the Moon and the landing of astronauts on the Moon and sending them to Mars.
NASA has delayed the first US manned mission to the Moon in more than half a century until September 2026 "to work through the challenges" on developing and integrating the spacecraft systems in the Artemis program, US space agency Administrator Bill Nelson said.
"To give [the] Artemis teams more time to work through the challenges with first time developments, we are going to give more time on Artemis II and Artemis III," Nelson told a teleconference on Tuesday. " We are adjusting our schedule to target Artemis II for September of 2025 and September of 2026 for Artemis III which will send humans for the first time to the lunar south pole."
NASA officials explained at the press conference that the delay to both the planned Artemis II mission to fly around the Moon and back and then the follow up planned Artemis III manned landing at the lunar South Pole were being delayed to give time to deal with unanticipated problems.
A Navajo man on a horse poses for tourists in front of the Merrick Butte in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal park, Utah, on May 12, 2014 - Sputnik Africa, 1920, 08.01.2024
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These involved the development of new spacesuits, unanticipated detachment of material from the reentry heat shield on the unmanned Artemis I mission last year and failures with the Orion spacecraft life support system and new abort ejection mechanism for its astronauts.
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