NASA overhauls Artemis program, delaying Moon landing to 2028

Source: Engadget

Overview

NASA is making major changes to its Artemis Moon program. Administrator Jared Isaacman announced an additional flight in 2027 to test commercial lunar landers from SpaceX and/or Blue Origin. This new mission will replace the originally planned Artemis 3, which would have been the first U.S. lunar landing since 1972. The flight will also test a new spacesuit made by Axiom Space.

Revised Mission Timeline

• 2027 – An extra flight will test at least one commercial lander in low Earth orbit.
• Artemis 4 (2028) – NASA aims to return humans to the Moon.
• Potential additional mission – May occur later in 2028.

The change follows a recommendation from NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, which deemed the previous mission plan too risky.

“NASA must standardize its approach, increase flight rate safely, and execute on the President’s national space policy. With credible competition from our greatest geopolitical adversary increasing by the day, we need to move faster, eliminate delays, and achieve our objectives,” said Isaacman.
“Standardizing vehicle configuration, increasing flight rate and progressing through objectives in a logical, phased approach, is how we achieved the near‑impossible in 1969 and it is how we will do it again.”

Artemis 2 Delays

Artemis 2 has experienced multiple setbacks:

• Hydrogen leak during a fueling test forced a postponement from the early‑February launch window.
• Helium pressurization issue in the SLS upper stage caused another delay.

The earliest new launch date is now April 1.