NASA delays next 2 Artemis moon missions to address heat shield, other issues

  NASA announced more delays Thursday in sending astronauts back to the moon more than 50 years after Apollo.

Administrator Bill Nelson said the next mission in the Artemis program -- flying four astronauts around the moon and back – is now targeted for April 2026. It had been on the books for September 2025, after slipping from this year.

The investigation into heat shield damage from the capsule’s initial test flight two years ago took time, officials said, and other spacecraft improvements are still needed.

This bumps the third Artemis mission — a moon landing by two other astronauts — to at least 2027. NASA had been aiming for 2026.

NASA’s Artemis program, a follow-up to the Apollo moonshots of the late 1960s and early 1970s, has completed only one mission. An empty Orion capsule circled the moon in 2022 after blasting off on NASA’s new Space Launch System rocket.

Although the launch and lunar laps went well, the capsule returned with an excessively charred and eroded bottom heat shield, damaged from the heat of reentry. It took until recently for engineers to pinpoint the cause and come up with a plan.

NASA will use the Orion capsule with its original heat shield for the next flight with four astronauts, according to Nelson, but make changes to the reentry path at the night’s end. To rip off and replace the heat shield would have meant at least a full year’s delay and stalled the moon landing even further, officials said.

During the flight test, NASA had the capsule dip in and out of the atmosphere during reentry, and gases built up in the heat shield’s outer layer, officials said. That resulted in cracking and uneven shedding of the outer material.

The commander of the lunar fly-around, astronaut Reid Wiseman, took part in Thursday’s news conference at NASA headquarters in Washington. His crew includes NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

“Delays are agonizing and slowing down is agonizing and it’s not what we like to do,” Wiseman said. But he said he and his crew wanted the heat shield damage from the first flight to be fully understood, regardless of how long it took. Now they can focus on this “large decision behind us.”

Twenty-four astronauts flew to the moon during NASA’s vaulted Apollo program, with 12 landing on it. The final bootprints in the lunar dust were made during Apollo 17 in December 1972.

Nelson said the revised schedule should still have the United States getting astronauts back on the lunar surface before China, which has indicated 2030 for a crew moon landing.

The space agency has put all the Artemis contractors, including Elon Musk’s SpaceX, on notice to “double-down” to meet the schedule deadlines, according to Nelson. SpaceX’s mega-rocket Starship — making test flights from Texas with increasing frequency — is how astronauts will get from the Orion capsule in lunar orbit down to the surface on the first two Artemis moon landings.

Nelson said he’s already called Jared Isaacman, the SpaceX-flying billionaire nominated this week by Trump to lead NASA, and invited him to NASA headquarters in Washington.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced on Thursday new delays in the U.S. space agency's Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972, pushing back the next two planned missions amid potential policy changes under President-elect Donald Trump's administration.

Nelson told a news conference at NASA headquarters that the next Artemis mission, sending astronauts around the moon and back, has slipped to April 2026, with the subsequent astronaut landing mission using SpaceX's Starship planned for the following year.

"Assuming the SpaceX lander is ready, we plan to launch Artemis III in mid-2027," Nelson said.

"That will be well ahead of the Chinese government's announced intention" to land on the lunar surface by 2030, Nelson added, illustrating the competition between the world's top two space powers as they race to the moon.

The newly announced delays came after NASA concluded an examination of the Orion crew capsule, made by Lockheed Martin (LMT.N), opening a new tab, and its heat shield, which had cracked and partially eroded during reentry into Earth's atmosphere on its debut in 2022 uncrewed test mission, Artemis I.

The Artemis program was established by NASA during Trump's first administration and represents the flagship American effort to return astronauts to the moon for the first time since the U.S. space agency's Apollo 17 mission. The Artemis program is estimated to cost $93 billion through 2025.

Unlike the Apollo missions, the Artemis program also calls for building lunar bases that will help pave the way for the more ambitious future goal of sending astronauts to Mars.

The Artemis program has made noteworthy progress, including Orion's 2022 uncrewed launch atop NASA's giant Space Launch System (SLS), but also has experienced various delays and rising costs. The roughly $2 billion SLS per-launch price tag and its heavy cost overruns in development have made advisers to Trump's transition effort eager to upend the Artemis program and focus more heavily on Mars using SpaceX's Starship. Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

Item 1 of 2 Astronauts for NASA's Artemis II mission stand in front of their Orion crew capsule, expected to carry Victor Glover, pilot, Reid Wiseman, commander, and mission specialists Christina Hammock Koch and Jeremy Hansen, with the Canadian Space Agency, around the Moon and back to Earth, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., August 8, 2023. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo

[1/2]Astronauts for NASA's Artemis II mission stand in front of their Orion crew capsule, expected to carry Victor Glover, pilot, Reid Wiseman, commander, and mission specialists Christina Hammock Koch and Jeremy Hansen, with the Canadian Space Agency, around the Moon and back to Earth, at the Kennedy... Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Read more

NASA's Artemis I mission was a 25-day voyage around the moon ended when the Orion capsule, carrying a simulated crew of three mannequins, made a splash down in the Pacific. During its blazing atmospheric reentry, the eat became trapped inside the Orion heatshield's outer layer, causing cracks and raising concerns after the mission about the capsule's future models.

Nelson said he and other senior NASA officials unanimously decided at a meeting this week to keep the heat shield design as is for Artemis II, but change the capsule's return trajectory to prevent the cracking issues.

Orion capsules on missions beyond Artemis II will have an upgraded heat shield. Replacing the Artemis II heat shield would have caused a much longer delay of at least a year, according to Pam Melroy, NASA's deputy administrator.

The Artemis II mission, a flight carrying astronauts around the moon in Orion but without a landing, has experienced previous delays as well, including one announced by Nelson in January pushing back its timetable to September 2025. Nelson on Thursday confirmed it would be further delayed until April 2026.

The Artemis III lunar landing mission involves Orion transferring the astronauts into space onto Starship, which will land them on the surface.

The United States and China, an ascending power in space, are both courting partner countries and leaning on private companies for their moon programs.

The Artemis program has been NASA's top priority under Nelson. Trump's first NASA chief, former U.S. congressman Jim Bridenstine, launched the Artemis program and persuaded Congress to increase the agency's budget to fund it.

Trump on Wednesday picked billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman, an associate of SpaceX founder Elon Musk, to succeed Nelson as NASA chief. Nelson said he spoke briefly to Isaacman to congratulate him, and that he expects the incoming Trump administration to carry Artemis forward under the current plan.