NASA announced in a stacked press conference that the agency is delaying its much anticipated Artemis 2 mission over safety concerns with the Lockheed Martin Orion spacecraft. Now slated for a September 2025 launch date, the delay also extends to Artemis 3 which is planned to liftoff one year after Artemis 2.
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NASA’s Artemis program is slated to land astronauts on the Moon by the end of 2025, but SpaceX’s hurdles with its lunar lander technology could potentially push the much-anticipated mission into 2026, warns a Senior NASA manager.
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Earlier this month, NASA moved the SLS engine section for Artemis 3 into the Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This comes as a distinct change from previous SLS core stages like the recently flown Artemis 1 and Artemis 2, which are still being assembled at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana. The biggest questions arising from this change are what NASA’s plan for Artemis 3 is and onwards and what stirred this sudden change.
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On Monday, NASA’s Office of Inspector General released a report detailing their finding during an audit of the Agency’s Artemis missions. The results are full of information on Starship and predicted timelines for Artemis I through III.
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Tuesday, NASA held a press conference to give an update on the agency’s Artemis program. During the conference, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced delays to the launches of Artemis II and III.
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Artemis III landing on the Moon in 2024 has always been a lofty goal, but NASA officials stuck to the date even as the previous administration left. Today, they began to officially acknowledge the breakdown of the deadline.
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