Dec. 5 (UPI) — NASA said Thursday it has postponed the next two launches in its delay-plagued Artemis moon landing program after investigating the causes of unexpected charring of Artemis I’s heat shield in 2022.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has announced that the crewed Artemis II mission has been postponed to April 2026, after a hoped-for launch in September 2025, while Artemis III – which will land the first woman and the next man on the moon – is now scheduled before mid-2027.
Nelson said engineers need time to prepare the heat shield on the Orion capsule, which is already attached but will need modifications to safely reenter Earth’s atmosphere.
More time is also needed to “address the Orion environmental control and life support systems,” he said.
“The Artemis campaign is the most daring, technically challenging, collaborative, international undertaking ever undertaken by humanity,” Nelson said in a statement.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced further delays to the Artemis moon program during an agency briefing Thursday. File photo by Joe Marino/UPI
“We have made significant progress on the Artemis campaign over the past four years and I am proud of the work our teams have done to prepare for this next step forward in exploration as we seek to learn more about the life-sustaining Orion systems. supporting crew operations during Artemis II.
“We have to get this next test flight right. This is how the Artemis campaign succeeds.’
From left to right, NASA’s Artemis II crew, Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialists Christina Koch and Canadian Jeremy Hansen stand with NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroyin in front of the Orion capsule at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in August 2023. File photo by Joe Marino/UPI
The launch of Artemis II will send four astronauts around the moon as part of NASA’s efforts to establish a long-term science and research presence there through the Artemis program.
The planned 10-day flight is intended to test NASA’s “fundamental” human capabilities for deep space exploration, the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft with astronauts for the first time.
NASA’s Artemis II Orion spacecraft sits in the Operations and Checkout Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in August 2023. The launch has been postponed due to issues with the heat shield and other fixes. File photo by Joe Marino/UPI
The agency announced in October that the “cause” of the uneven erosion on the heat shield of the unmanned Artemis I had been identified. Officials explained this further during a press conference at the agency’s headquarters in Washington on Thursday.
Teams from NASA and the Department of Defense conduct recovery training with a test version of the Orion spacecraft in the Turning Basin at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in February 2023. File photo by Joe Marino/UPI
After extensive research, engineers determined that changes in Orion’s trajectory as it enters Earth’s atmosphere and slows from nearly 25,000 miles per hour to about 325 miles per hour before the parachutes deploy for a safe landing in the Pacific Ocean, can be set to prevent charring by the heat shield.
NASA conducted more than 100 tests at facilities across the country and determined that the heat shield on Artemis did not release enough of the gases generated in a material called Avcoat, causing some of the material to crack and break off.
Although there was no crew in Orion during Artemis I, data shows that the temperature inside the capsule remained comfortable and safe if a crew had been on board, engineers said.
The delay announced Thursday was the latest in a series of delays for the ambitious moon landing program. In January, NASA announced that the launch of Artemis III had been postponed by a year from late 2025 to September 2026.
