NASA has announced a new plan for its upcoming Artemis mission to send astronauts to the moon. This is the second delay in these crew missions after NASA’s timeline in January of this year. The agency said it now aims to launch the Artemis 2 mission in April 2026, and push back the Artemis 3 mission to mid-2027.
The delay was partly caused by problems with the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield during the failed Artemis 1 test flight. During that mission, the combustibles that act as heat shields wore out in an unexpected way. Data from inside the capsule showed that if the crew had been present during that flight, the temperatures would have been safe even though the heat shield acted differently than expected. But that’s the kind of thing you don’t want to take chances with once the astronauts get in.
“Victor, Christina, Jeremy and Jeremy and I have been following every aspect of this decision and we appreciate NASA’s openness to analyze all options and make decisions in the interest of human spaceflight,” said Reid Wiseman, NASA astronaut. “We are excited to fly Artemis 2 and continue to pave the way for continued human exploration of the Moon and Mars.” The 2 crew members are Victor Glover and Christina Koch of NASA and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency.
Artemis 2 is planned to be a ten-day mission to orbit the moon and return to Earth. Although the team will not land on our most familiar satellite, the probe is intended to collect more data about the Orion space capsule before the Artemis 3 mission, where the team will touch down on the moon’s pole.
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