It’ll be many more moons before NASA astronauts make a lunar return.
NASA is delaying its return to the moon to 2025, pushing back its original target of 2024, senior NASA officials announced at a press conference Tuesday. The officials cited legal concerns involving Blue Origin and the pandemic delaying the development of the landing system.
“2024 was not a goal that was really technically feasible,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a news conference on Tuesday. “We are [now] estimating no earlier than 2025.”
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On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims rejected a lawsuit brought by Jeff-Bezos-owned Blue Origin in August taking issue with its selection of Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build the lunar lander for the Artemis program. Even though the ruling went NASA’s way, the time in court delayed progress on lunar return plans, administrators said.
“We’ve lost nearly seven months in litigation, and that likely has pushed the first human landing likely to no earlier than 2025,” Nelson told reporters.
NASA intends to launch Artemis 1, the first uncrewed test flight around the moon, in February 2022, Nelson said. Artemis 2, which will be crewed and circle the moon, should launch in May 2024. Finally, Artemis 3, which will put a man on the moon, is expected to fly in 2025. Nelson said NASA intends to host at least “10 moon landings in the future,” but it will need additional funding to succeed.
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The Artemis program was announced in 2019 by then-Vice President Mike Pence, who promised to put a man on the moon by 2024.
With recent cutbacks on developmental budgets for NASA, the space agency has become entirely reliant on private companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin to develop its rockets.
