Man's return to the moon will have to wait. The United States Space Agency (NASA will postpone the Artemis II manned mission, which will fly over the moon, to 2025 and the Artemis III mission, which will send astronauts to the moon, to September 2026Both missions are planned for 2024 and 2025, respectively.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said this in a telephone press conference this Tuesday The safety of the crew is their “top priority” and that Artemis missions require “more time” to prepare.
“I would like to announce that we are adjusting our schedule to deliver Artemis II in September 2025 and Artemis III by September 2026,” Nelson said.
Artemis II, a mission originally scheduled for November this year, will require four astronauts to fly across the moon aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft. Last April, it was announced that this ten-day mission will have Reid Wiseman as commander and Víctor Glover as pilot, while astronauts Christina Hammock Koch and Jeremy Hansen will serve as mission specialists.
Artemis II is intended to serve as a prelude to Artemis III, which is originally planned for 2025 and with which NASA wants to send the first woman and the first African American to the moon.. Nelson explained at the press conference that the schedule change will not change the Artemis 4 mission, a second lunar landing that remains scheduled for September 2028.
The Artemis program started in 2022 with the flyby of an unmanned mission on the moon and will be used in the future to explore Mars. This is what the NASA administrator said We have entered a “golden age” of space explorationwhich opens the door to the exploration of Mars and reveals the “secrets” of the formation of the solar system.