NASA delays Artemis missions that aims to send astronauts to the moon until 2026, 2027

NASA's long-awaited crewed missions to the moon will have to wait a little longer.

The U.S. space agency announced Thursday that it is delaying its Artemis II and Artemis III missions by at least one more year, mostly due to issues with the Orion capsule the astronauts would ride to space during both lunar expeditions.

That means the Artemis III mission, which intends to send astronauts back to the moon's surface for the first time in more than 50 years, now will happen no earlier than 2027, NASA said.

The mission preceding it, Artemis II, has also been delayed to no earlier than 2026. The astronauts who are part of the Artemis II mission will one day embark on a 10-day trip circumnavigating – but not landing on – the moon.

NASA's ambitious Artemis program – the agency's first lunar program since the Apollo era – has for years been mired in delays and controversy as elected officials and other aeronautics experts have expressed concerns about its scope and cost.

The latest delay also comes as NASA Administrator Bill Nelson prepares to step down from his post when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House in January.

Artemis delay due to issues with Orion capsule's heat shield

The reasoning behind the delay was credited to issues with the Orion spacecraft heat shield during Artemis I, which was an uncrewed mission to the moon that launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 16, 2022, and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Dec.11, 2022.

During reentry, the heat shield "experienced an unexpected loss of charred material," NASA said in a media release.

NASA and an independent review team had spent months analyzing technical issues that caused the heat shield to wear away differently than expected.

“The Artemis campaign is the most daring, technically challenging, collaborative, international endeavor humanity has ever set out to do,” Nelson said in a statement. While significant progress has been made since Artemis I, Nelson said NASA aims to learn more about Orion's life support systems ahead of Artemis II.

"We need to get this next test flight right. That’s how the Artemis campaign succeeds," Nelson said.

What is the next step for the Artemis campaign?

Following Artemis 1, NASA conducted an extensive investigation into the heat shield issue and determined that the Artemis II heat shield could keep the crew safe during the planned mission with "changes to Orion’s trajectory as it enters Earth’s atmosphere and slows from nearly 25,000 mph to about 325 mph before its parachutes unfurl for safe splashdown in the Pacific Ocean," according to the release.

The team also determined that a "charred material" on the heat shield – crucial to protecting the astronauts as they reenter Earth’s atmosphere – wore away differently than expected during Artemis I, NASA said. Although a crew was not inside the Orion during Artemis I, data shows the temperature inside the spacecraft remained comfortable and safe if one had been aboard.

“Throughout our process to investigate the heat shield phenomenon and determine a forward path, we’ve stayed true to NASA’s core values; safety and data-driven analysis remained at the forefront,” said Catherine Koerner, an associate administrator at NASA Headquarters in Washington, in a statement. “The updates to our mission plans are a positive step toward ensuring we can safely accomplish our objectives at the Moon and develop the technologies and capabilities needed for crewed Mars missions.”

NASA said it will continue stacking its Space Launch System rocket elements, which began in November, and prepare to integrate it with the Orion for Artemis II.

What is the Artemis program? Lunar campaign delayed before

This is not the first time NASA delayed the campaign as Artemis II was pushed back in January from November 2024 to September 2025, and Artemis III was moved from 2025 to September 2026.

NASA attributed the initial delays to a battery flaw and "challenges" with the air ventilation and temperature control systems of the Orion spacecraft.

Artemis II and II are just in tip of the iceberg in NASA's larger lunar program, estimated to cost $93 billion through 2025, Reuters reported. In the years ahead, NASA's Artemis campaign aims to establish a lunar settlement on the south pole, where water ice thought to be abundant in the region could be extracted and used for drinking, breathing and as a source of hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel.

The settlement would serve as a base of operations to make crewed deep space missions, including trips to Mars possible – such as the ones SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is planning as early as 2028. Musk's company has been rigorously testing its massive Starship spacecraft, which NASA hired to ferry Artemis III astronauts from Orion to the lunar surface while in orbit.

For the United States, American astronauts have not set foot on the moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972.

While there is still a long wait, Reid Wiseman, one of four astronauts on the Artemis II crew, said the crew is "thankful for the openness of NASA to weigh all options and make decisions in the best interest of human spaceflight."

"We are excited to fly Artemis II and continue paving the way for sustained human exploration of the Moon and Mars,” Wiseman said in a statement.

China plans to send astronauts to the moon by 2030

NASA is not alone in wanting to visit the moon as China declared in April that it plans to send its own astronauts to the moon by 2030.

Earlier this year, China launched its Chang’e-6 lunar probe as it sought to become the first nation to ever retrieve samples from the far side of the moon.

Contributing: Anthony Robledo, Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAY; Reuters

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NASA delays Artemis moon missions until 2026, 2027