NASA's Moon Landings will be delayed several years past 2024

[smp]

From the new report from The OIG of NASA:

"NASA’s three initial Artemis missions, designed to culminate in a crewed lunar landing, face varying degrees of technical difficulties and delays heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic and weather events that will push launch schedules from months to years past the Agency’s current goals. With Artemis I mission elements now being integrated and tested at Kennedy Space Center, we estimate NASA will be ready to launch by summer 2022 rather than November 2021 as planned. Although Artemis II is scheduled to launch in late 2023, we project that it will be delayed until at least mid-2024 due to the mission’s reuse of Orion components from Artemis I. While the Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Division—which includes HLS, Gateway, and next-generation spacesuits—is working on an integrated master schedule (IMS) for Artemis III that incorporates Exploration Systems Development (ESD) Division programs—SLS, Orion, and Exploration Ground Systems—the draft version does not include information on programs critical to Artemis that are outside of AES and ESD. Given the time needed to develop and fully test the HLS and new spacesuits, we project NASA will exceed its current timetable for landing humans on the Moon in late 2024 by several years."

https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-22-003.pdf

No real surprise to me - nice to see it out of the closet.

smp

[helicon]

Thanks for the update Stephen

[Makuser]

Hi Stephen. Thanks for the Artemis 1 launch delay news. I heard a radio news broadcast yesterday about the lunar launch delays and mentioned 2025 or even later. Thanks for finding and posting this update link Stephen and keep up the great space news reporting.