NEW ORLEANS — NASA is postponing the next two Artemis missions, including the first crewed landing on the moon, by nearly a year to address technical issues that could affect the safety of the astronauts on board.
During a Jan. 9 media teleconference, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced that Artemis 2, the first crewed mission that will send four astronauts around the moon, had been pushed back from the end of 2024 to no earlier than September 2025. Artemis 3, the first crewed landing, was in turn delayed from late 2025 to no earlier than September 2026.
“Safety is our top priority,” Nelson said. “To give Artemis teams more time to work through the challenges with first-time developments, operations and integration, we’re going to give more time on Artemis 2 and 3.”
Three specific issues drove the delay in Artemis 2, said Amit Kshatriya, NASA deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars Program. One was unexpected erosion of material on the Orion capsule’s heat shield during reentry on Artemis 1 in December 2022, which the agency had previously reported. He said the agency was making good progress on understanding what caused that erosion and expected to find a root cause by the spring, but needed more time to synthesize the data and update models before flying again.
A second issue involves components for the capsule’s life support system. Inspections of hardware delivered for the spacecraft that will fly the Artemis 3 mission found failures in circuitry that drives valves. “When we examined it, we recognized there was a design flaw in that circuit,” he said. “Those valve electronics affect many parts of the life support system on the spacecraft,” including systems that remove carbon dioxide.
NASA has decided to replace those electronics, including on the Orion flying Artemis 2, even though they passed earlier acceptance tests. “It’s going to take quite a bit of time to get to,” Kshatriya said,…
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