Fall 2025 will not see any launches from NASA and its Artemis Moon mission as the national space agency announced that it is delaying the program after evaluating its initial findings on the last Artemis I mission. With this, the timeline for the program will see several months of delay for the Artemis II mission, and it also affects the further launches of this supposed return to the lunar surface.
Instead of a ramping Moon mission launch with actual crewmembers aboard the Orion spacecraft by September 2025, NASA, its astronauts, and the entire world would have to wait for further developments.
NASA Delays Artemis II Mission to 2026 After Recent Findings
The latest release from NASA shared the latest findings on its study on Artemis I’s Orion spacecraft, particularly when pieces of its heat shield flew off, burned, and saw these materials wearing unexpectedly. With these findings, NASA is opting for safety and announced the delays for the Artemis II mission that will no longer launch come Fall 2025 and instead commence by April 2026.
It will be around seven months of delay for the Artemis II mission before it launches toward the moon for its flyby journey, with NASA exerting grave importance to this mission as it will bring a four-person crew of astronauts with it.
Because of the findings, NASA also announced that it would also change the Orion’s trajectory when it makes its re-entry burn from 25,000 miles per hour to 325 mph, and then deploy its parachutes before its Pacific Ocean splashdown.
“We need to get this next test flight right. That’s how the Artemis campaign succeeds,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
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Other Artemis Mission Launches Also Pushed Back
Because of this, NASA also pushed back on the other missions under its Artemis program, particularly with the Artemis III mission that was supposedly launching by 2026. Now, the Artemis III, best known as the mission that will land astronauts on the Moon via SpaceX’s Starship HLS (Human Landing System), will commence by mid-2027.
NASA and its Return to the Moon
It has been a long and winding journey for NASA in its plans to bring humans back to the Moon which will center on flying a new generation of astronauts to the lunar surface fifty years since the last. Two years ago, NASA completed its uncrewed Artemis I mission which tested the capabilities of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft in its flyby venture.
Supposedly, NASA will launch the next mission under Artemis II this 2024, two years after its maiden launch, but earlier this year, the space agency announced that all future missions will see a one-year delay. NASA claimed that it is prioritizing “crew safety” with this decision to push back on the launches, and it previously set September 2025 to finally see the crewed Artemis II make its way to the Moon.
NASA and its team of experts working on the Artemis program have legitimate concerns regarding its crew’s safety and the success of the mission which led to the massive delays behind the historic return to the natural satellite. Because of the recent findings on Orion’s heat shield, NASA ultimately decided that Artemis II is not yet launching by next Fall, and instead, it will be commencing the mission by Spring of 2026.
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