NASA Mission To Land Humans On Moon Delayed: Artemis 3 Now Slated For Mid-2027

NASA on Thursday postponed its upcoming two Artemis missions, including the one expected to land humans back on the surface of the Moon for the first time in over half a century.

What Happened: While the Artemis 2 mission is now slated for April 2026, Artemis 3 is slated for mid-2027. Previously, the agency was planning to undertake the Artemis 2 mission in Sept. 2025 and Artemis 3 in 2026.

During the Artemis 1 mission in late 2022, charred material on the heat shield wore away differently than expected during re-entry. However, unlike Artemis 1, Artemis 2 mission will have a crew on board. The delayed timeline will allow the agency to address the Orion spacecraft’s environmental control and life support systems, NASA said.

"The Artemis campaign is the most daring, technically challenging, collaborative, international endeavor humanity has ever set out to do," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “We need to get this next test flight right. That's how the Artemis campaign succeeds."

For Artemis 2, engineers will continue to prepare the Orion spacecraft with the heat shield attached to the capsule. However, the agency will make changes to Orion’s trajectory as it enters Earth’s atmosphere and subsequently splashes down in the Pacific Ocean.

Why It Matters: NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen will continue training for the 10-day Artemis 2 mission in the meantime. They will fly around the Moon and back.

Artemis 3 will build on Artemis 2 and aims to land people on the surface of the Moon with a human landing system version of SpaceX’s Starship.

The Artemis program is the U.S.’s campaign to return to the surface of the Moon after a long gap of over 50 years. The last time NASA landed humans on the Moon was in 1972 as part of the Apollo Program.

The program is also expected to build the foundation for crewed missions to Earth’s neighboring planet Mars.

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