NASA said on Tuesday that its ambitions to send people to the Moon's surface have been postponed, with a crewed landing set for 2025.
The revised timeline is a step back from the earlier goal of 2024 established by former President Donald Trump's administration as part of the Artemis program in 2017.
That already difficult aim has lately become even more difficult. According to Space.com, the coronavirus pandemic and a lawsuit filed by Blue Origin caused the delays. NASA said the 2024 target to fly astronauts to the Moon is not really achievable.
NASA Reschedules Artemis Moon Landing Goal Due to Different Factors
NASA blamed the delays on Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin's protest and lawsuit filed earlier this year. Bill Nelson, the space agency's administrator, said the dispute forced the agency to lose nearly seven months of work with Elon Musk's SpaceX on the lunar lander contract.
In April, SpaceX was awarded a $2.9 billion contract to produce a variant of its Starship rocket to send humans to the Moon as part of NASA's Human Landing System program.
But Science Times said a federal court dismissed Blue Origin's case against NASA last week, putting an end to the work standstill.
Now that the dispute has been settled, NASA may work with SpaceX on the moon lander, which is an essential piece of equipment since it will transport personnel to and from the lunar surface.
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According to CNBC, Nelson blamed the previous administration for establishing a lunar timetable that was not backed up by funding or the speed with which technical work was completed. He said that NASA's goal of a human landing on the Moon in 2024 was not based on technical feasibility.
Bloomberg, citing the space agency, said the cost of the Orion crew capsule, which will transport Artemis astronauts, has risen by more than $2.5 billion to $9.3 billion through 2024. According to NASA officials, the cost of that program, which has Lockheed Martin Corp. as the prime contractor, has increased due to changing requirements during the development process.
This is on top of an estimated $11 billion cost for the Space Launch System rocket to launch Orion. The SLS system's maiden flight, the Artemis I mission without a crew, is set for Feb. 12.
New Artemis Timeline
After the launch of Artemis 1 in February or March 2022, Nelson said the second mission, Artemis 2, would launch no later than May 2024. (instead of April 2023). Astronomy.com said the crew of Artemis 2 will be the first to approach the Moon's vicinity in more than 50 years. But they will not land. Nelson said Artemis 3, the first crewed landing, will now take place no sooner than 2025. For that mission, NASA still plans to land near the Moon's South Pole.
Nelson also revealed that Artemis 3 would be preceded by an uncrewed landing mission as part of the Human Landing System (HLS) contract that SpaceX was awarded. It is the first NASA commitment to an uncrewed landing, which is not totally surprising. The mission number has yet to be revealed, according to NASA officials.
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