The US space agency Nasa has postponed the manned Artemis 2 orbit of the moon, previously planned for November 2024, to September 2025 due to problems with the rocket and spacecraft. The planned manned moon landing Artemis 3 will be postponed to September 2026, NASA announced at a press conference.
Artemis 4, another planned moon landing, is still scheduled for September 2028. “We are doing something incredibly difficult,” said NASA boss Bill Nelson. “And safety is our top priority.” That’s why they want to give the teams more time to work on the current challenges.
The US astronaut Christina Koch, her US colleagues Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman and the Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen had actually already arrived in November 2024 Orioncapsule should fly around the moon for around ten days. They would have been the first four astronauts near the moon since the astronauts of the Apollo 17 mission spent some time on Earth’s satellite in 1972. The missile system was at the end of 2022 Space Launch System and the capsule Orion successfully tested unmanned for the first time. Around a year after Artemis 2, another manned flight, including a moon landing, was to follow, Artemis 3.
The Artemis program, named after the Greek goddess of the moon, is intended to land a woman and a non-white person on the moon for the first time – this was originally scheduled for 2024, but experts questioned this timeline from the start. The European Space Agency Esa and space agencies from several other countries are involved in Artemis.
Twelve people have been on the moon so far
The last time people were on the moon was around 50 years ago with the Apollo 17 mission – the landing took place on December 11, 1972. In total, the USA was the only country to date to bring twelve astronauts to the moon with the Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972.
There was also recently bad news related to the moon from a private space company. The mission aimed at the first successful commercial landing on the moon failed. Due to a fuel leak, the engines will probably only be able to operate the capsule for a short period of time Peregrine in a stable position, the Pittsburgh company Astrobotic announced on Tuesday night. “Currently our goal is Peregrine “To get as close to the Moon’s orbit as we can before it loses the ability to orient itself to the Sun and the batteries subsequently run out.”
The capsule was supposed to land on Earth’s satellite at the end of February in an area called Sinus Viscositatis (Bay of Stickiness) and complete the first – unmanned – US moon landing since the Apollo mission over 50 years ago.