The United States space agency (NASA) announced this Thursday a new delay of one year in his mission to return to the moon due to technical problems and postponed the arrival of astronauts on the lunar surface until 2027.
The announcement represents a new setback for Artemis, NASA’s flagship program, and comes a few weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, who has not detailed his plans for that mission.
In a press conference, the outgoing administrator of NASA, Bill Nelson, explained that the Artemis III mission, that plans for astronauts to set foot on the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years, was postponed from 2026 to mid-2027.
Likewise, the Artemis II mission, which must first put a manned spacecraft into orbit of the Moon, was delayed from 2025 to April 2026.
“We will not fly until we are ready, until it is possible to do so for the people on board. We must do it right”, declared the head of the space agency.
The Artemis lunar exploration program was designed as a first step toward arrival of humans to Mars and it started in 2022 with the flyby of the Moon by an unmanned mission.
Although that first mission was a success, NASA engineers detected a series of anomalies and technical problemsincluding unexpected damage to the Orion capsule’s heat shield, which caused a delay in the schedule of the two subsequent missions to ensure the safety of the astronauts.
Last January, NASA already announced that it was postponing its lunar missions by one year, delaying Artemis II to 2025 and Artemis III to 2026.
Nelson detailed this Thursday that the new plan contemplates using the same heat shield as the Orion capsule but modify the trajectory of re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere after the flight.
Despite the delays, the NASA administrator assured that the United States would continue to win the space race against China, which has declared its intention to reach the Moon starting in 2030. “It is vital for us to land at the south pole of the Moon, so as not to give up parts of that pole to the Chinese”he declared.
It is estimated that the United States will spend about $93 billion on the Artemis program through 2025.
The delay is announced at a time of transition in the United States Government and in the management of NASA after Trump won the elections on November 5.
The president-elect, who will succeed Democrat Joe Biden on January 20, announced this Wednesday that will appoint millionaire Jared Isaacman, the first private astronaut to perform a spacewalk, as head of the space agency.
Isaacman, 41, is a close collaborator of tycoon Elon Musk, founder of the SpaceX company and who will also participate in the Republican Government as in charge of cutting the budget of federal agencies.
Nelson, who already had an initial phone call with Isaacman, said the agency has worked “painstakingly” to make Artemis viable and predicted that the new Administration will welcome that plan.
The administrator also believed that the good relationship between Trump and Musk, whose company is building the lander for Artemis III, will be beneficial so that NASA does not suffer budget cuts. NASA has SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and other contractors in the Artemis program.
The Artemis astronauts’ trip to the Moon is planned as a relay between multiple spacecraft in space, initially launching from Earth aboard Orion and then transferring in space to SpaceX’s Starship system to get to and from the surface. mole.
During Trump’s first term, between 2017 and 2021, the United States began making plans to return to the Moon, a place it has not set foot since. the Apollo 17 mission of 1972but it is not clear whether the Republican will maintain those efforts or set reaching Mars as a new priority.
SpaceX expects rapid progress in Starship development during the second Trump administration, whose space agenda is expected to give the Artemis program greater focus on the more ambitious goal of landing people on Mars, Musk’s main space aspiration.
(With information from EFE and Reuters)
