NASA delays astronaut flight around the moon

US space agency NASA has announced further delays in its plan to send astronauts back to the Moon.

Agency head Bill Nelson said the second mission in the Artemis program was now scheduled to launch in April 2026.

The plan was to send astronauts around the Moon, but not to land until September 2025. The date had already been shifted once from November this year.

This would mean that a moon landing would not occur until at least 2027, a year later than originally planned.

The delay was needed to fix a problem with the capsule’s heat shield, which had returned from the previous test flight extremely burnt and worn, with cracks and some pieces broken off.

Mr Nelson told a news conference that “the safety of our astronauts is our north star”.

“We don’t fly until we’re ready. We need to do the next test flight, and we need to do it right. And that’s how the Artemis program moves forward.”

Mr Nelson said engineers have got to the root of the problem and believe it can be fixed by changing the capsule’s re-entry trajectory – but it will take time to evaluate it thoroughly.

NASA is in competition with the Chinese space agency, which has its own plans to send astronauts to the Moon. Mr. Nelson said he was confident that the Artemis program would reach the lunar surface first, but he called on NASA’s commercial and international partners to “redouble efforts to complete and improve this program.”

“We plan to launch Artemis 3 in mid-2027. This would be well ahead of the Chinese government’s stated intention, which they have already publicly stated, for 2030.”

However, additional delays will increase pressure on government-run NASA – whose rocket system to send astronauts to the Moon, the Space Launch System (SLS), has been criticized as expensive and slow to develop.

This is in stark contrast to Elon Musk’s private sector company, SpaceX, which is leading efforts to build its own, ultimately much cheaper and reusable Starship rocket.

President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Jared Yaakman to replace Nelson as NASA chief has raised concerns that major changes are in store for NASA’s moon program.

Mr Isaacman is a billionaire and a close ally of Mr Musk, who has paid for two private sector missions that have taken him to space. According to Dr. Simeon Barber, a space scientist at the Open University, his entrepreneurial approach could prove to be a shock to NASA’s system.

“The SLS is an old-school rocket. It’s not reusable like Starship, so is very expensive, and it’s taken a long time to get operational. And slow and expensive is a precarious situation for the incoming president, we hope. Do this, trying to save costs.

“Isaacman is going to bring a new pair of eyes to how NASA works. And it’s hard to guess what this combination of Isaacman, Musk and Trump could mean for NASA as we know it.” Are.”