NASA to push back moon mission timelines amid spacecraft delays - sources

investing.com:

By Joey Roulette

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — NASA is set to delay its next few missions to the moon under a key program as technical hurdles mount with the various spacecraft it intends to use to get there, according to four people familiar with NASA's plans.

The U.S. space agency is expected to announce the plans on Tuesday after spending months tracking progress with contractors and considering changes to the Artemis program, a multi-billion dollar effort that includes returning the first astronauts to the moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972.

NASA's second Artemis mission is expected to be pushed beyond its planned late-2024 target after issues were uncovered with the Lockheed Martin-built Orion crew capsule's batteries during vibration tests, two of the people said. The batteries will need to be replaced.

This would have been the first flight with humans aboard after launching the capsule uncrewed atop NASA's Space Launch System in a 2022 inaugural test.

Artemis 3 — planned to be the first mission landing humans on the moon in late 2025 using the Starship landing system from NASA contractor SpaceX — will likewise be pushed back. Billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX is taking longer than expected to reach certain development milestones, all four people said.

NASA declined to comment. Lockheed and SpaceX did not immediately return requests for comment.

Senior NASA officials in recent months have been mulling plans to move the inaugural Artemis astronaut landing to the fourth mission, giving SpaceX and other contractors more practice before making the first such landing in half a century.

NASA officials presented that option to the agency's senior leadership last month, but it could not be determined if it chose that path.