The first test flight of the Artemis program took place in November 2022, when an unpiloted Orion capsule was sent on a loop around the moon and back. The Artemis 2 mission was supposed to carry four astronauts around the moon to properly test the spacecraft's system at the end of this year, but issues with the heat shield of the capsule led to delays. The latest rescheduling of the program's steps has been announced yesterday in a press conference.
According to NASA's current administrator, Bill Nelson, the decision to delay the program once again was an easy one.
"Based on the data, we have decided, unanimously, to move forward with the current Artemis 2/Orion capsule and heat shield with a modified entry trajectory...to lessen the heat coming back into the Earth's atmosphere. Additionally, we need to complete our updates to the Orion environmental controls and the life support systems that were identified earlier this year,"
he said.
For now, the scheduled dates are these: April 2026 for the Artemis 2 mission and mid-2027 for the Artemis 3, which involves landing on the moon and, obviously, moonwalking and taking various samples. In order to avoid further delays, Elon Musk's SpaceX should also manage to test the lunar lander properly and perform at least one unpiloted lunar landing without any hiccups. If everything goes smoothly, Artemis 2 might take off earlier than expected, since there is still plenty of time until then.
Although it was published in 2020, The Artemis Lunar Program: Returning People to the Moon is a very interesting read, since it covers the period from 2017 to 2030 as it had been planned by NASA at the time of publishing. It is available in Kindle and paperback formats, starting at $16.19.
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