“Artemis is a long-term exploration campaign to conduct science at the Moon with astronauts and prepare for future human missions to Mars,” said Amit Kshatriya.

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In an unfortunate setback to NASA’s Artemis program, the space agency announced this morning that the Artemis II mission, which was originally scheduled for November of this year, has been postponed until September 2025, which also pushes back the Artemis III mission to September 2026. The Artemis II mission, which is slated to be the first crewed mission to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, is still slated to carry astronauts Reid Wiseman (NASA), Victor Glover (NASA), Chrsitina Koch (NASA), and Jeremy Hansen (Canadian Space Agency), with the crew still involved with heavy training as they prepare for the historic mission.

This news unfortunately comes after NASA announced the United Arab Emirates will be providing the airlock for the Lunar Gateway, which will be space station in orbit around the Moon used to ferry astronauts to and from the lunar surface.

The reason for the delays is due to further testing of hardware and spacecraft systems to ensure the safety of astronauts on future missions, which includes addressing concerns from the Orion capsule found during the Artemis I mission in November 2022, along with concerns about Orion’s heat shield, which teams discovered pieces of char layers that were lost during re-entry, and investigations are still ongoing. The heat shield is responsible for protecting the Orion capsule from the extreme temperatures during Earth re-entry.

NASA’s efforts to return astronauts to the moon have been delayed — again.

In a major step towards returning humans to the Moon for the first time since 1972, the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently announced they will be providing the airlock for NASA’s Lunar Gateway, which is the planned space station that will be in orbit around the Moon and responsible for ferrying future astronauts to and from the lunar surface.

Artist’s rendition of the Lunar Gateway (left) and a potential future airlock provided by the UAE (right). (Credit: NASA)

“The United States and the United Arab Emirates are marking a historic moment in our nations’ collaboration in space, and the future of human space exploration,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “We are in a new era of exploration through Artemis – strengthened by the peaceful and international exploration of space. The UAE’s provision of the airlock to Gateway will allow astronauts to conduct groundbreaking science in deep space and prepare to one day send humanity to Mars.”

As a result, the company is now racing to make the most of the situation, though a full Moon landing is now sounding more or less impossible.

“We are currently assessing what alternative mission profiles may be feasible at this time,” the company wrote.

It’s a sad state of affairs. In the most recent update, the company shared the first photo the lander snapped in space, showing a creased layer of insulation, which may have contributed to the spacecraft’s ongoing issues.

A US spacecraft carrying human remains launched on Monday in a bid to become the first private mission to land on the moon.

If it succeeds, Peregrine will also be the first US mission in more than 50 years to complete a lunar touchdown and could pave the way for commercial space services, such as lunar burials.

“This is the moment we’ve been waiting for 16 years,” John Thornton, CEO of Astrobiotic, the company behind the lander, said after the launch. “We are on our way to the moon.”

Preparations for the third flight of Starship are making solid progress after both vehicles completed their respective solo test campaigns. Booster 10 rolled back to the Shipyard for final mods and checkouts before its flight, and Ship 28 wasn’t far behind. Both vehicles are now in their Bays for final work before rolling back to the launch site for integrated stack testing and launch.

Booster 10

Booster 10 recently rolled back to the Booster Bay (Mega Bay 1) on Jan. 2, 2024. SpaceX rolled it back in order to complete final preps and mods ahead of its flight.