Astronauts will have to wait until next year before flying to the moon and at least two years before landing on it, under the latest round of delays announced by NASA on Tuesday.
The space agency had planned to send four astronauts around the moon late this year, but pushed the flight to September 2025. The first human moon landing in more than 50 years also got bumped, from 2025 to September 2026. NASA cited safety concerns with its own spacecraft, as well as development issues with the moonsuits and landers coming from private industry.
“Safety is our top priority,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. The delays will “give Artemis teams more time to work through the challenges.”
The news came barely an hour after a Pittsburgh company abandoned its own attempt to land its spacecraft on the moon because of a mission-ending fuel leak.
Unfortunate, but understandable. The only thing that’d be worse than a mission-ending malfunction is one that results in someone getting killed. I’ve got faith in NASA to get it right.
I don’t know if 2024 was ever a feasible date. I have a suspicion that the Trump administration wanted a lunar landing while in office, and aiming for the end of a second term was the soonest they thought it might be possible.
