NASA’s Artemis program, aiming for a crewed moon landing this decade, has been hit with further delays, CNN reports.
The agency announced Thursday that the planned lunar landing mission, originally slated for 2026, is now pushed back to no earlier than mid-2027. The Artemis II mission, a crewed flyby of the moon scheduled for September 2025, is also delayed, now targeting an April 2026 launch at the earliest.
These delays are primarily attributed to unforeseen issues with the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield. During the uncrewed Artemis I mission in 2022, the heat shield experienced unexpected charring and erosion during reentry. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson explained that extensive testing has identified the root cause and that the agency has taken steps to address the problem.
The issue, according to NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, stems from Orion’s “skip reentry” maneuver, designed to slow the spacecraft’s descent from deep space. This technique involves multiple dips into and out of the atmosphere, which, during Artemis I, led to unexpected heat buildup within the heat shield’s outer layer. Artemis II will utilize a modified trajectory to minimize this atmospheric skipping and reduce the risk to the crew.
This latest delay adds to a string of setbacks for the Artemis program. The original goal of a 2024 moon landing, set during the Trump administration, was significantly accelerated from a previous 2028 target. This ambitious timeline was partly driven by a perceived space race with China, which aims for a crewed lunar landing by 2030. The current delays push the Artemis III landing date closer to the pre-accelerated 2028 timeline.
The announcement comes as NASA faces a leadership transition with the incoming Trump administration. President Trump’s nomination of Jared Isaacman, a billionaire tech entrepreneur with close ties to SpaceX, as NASA administrator, raises the possibility of further schedule adjustments. Isaacman has publicly expressed reservations about aspects of the current Artemis program, including the awarding of multiple contracts for the lunar lander.
