NASA’s Artemis Lunar Missions Delayed Yet Again – Astronauts Now Set To Land on the Moon in 2026 – Peregrine Lander Was Abandoned in Space Due to Fatal Fuel Leak

The American space program continues to face a constellation of problems in the plan to take the first humans back to the Moon in over half a century.

It was barely an hour after Astrobotic Technology announced that the Peregrine lander mission was ‘abandoned’ due to a fatal fuel leak, when NASA came public with the plans to delay the different missions of the Artemis space program.

Astronauts will only fly to the moon next year, and will have to wait a few more years before landing on it, according to the latest round of delays announced by NASA.

Associated Press reported:

“The space agency had planned to send four astronauts around the moon late this year, but pushed the flight to September 2025 because of safety and technical issues. The first human moon landing in more than 50 years also got bumped, from 2025 to September 2026.

‘Safety is our top priority’, said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. The delays will ‘give Artemis teams more time to work through the challenges’.”

The Starship mega rocket, from SpaceX’s will be used to get the astronauts from lunar orbit down to the surface and back up.

The 400-foot rocket has been launched twice, exploding both times over the Gulf of Mexico.

“The Government Accountability Office warned in November that NASA was likely looking at 2027 for its first astronaut moon landing, citing Elon Musk’s Starship as one of the many technical challenges. Another potential hurdle: the development of moonwalking suits by Houston’s Axiom Space.

‘We need them all to be ready and all to be successful in order for that very complicated mission to come together’, said Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s deputy associate administrator.”

NASA’s return to the moon has been delayed repeatedly over the past decade.

Reuters reported:

“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. It was also unclear what the new target dates for the initial Artemis missions would be.”

NASA’s Artemis program relies heavily on private companies, such as Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and SpaceX’s.

“Complex development milestones with SpaceX’s giant Starship system include the company’s plan to refuel Starship at an orbital propellant depot before the ship can take humans to the lunar surface and launch them back with enough fuel.

NASA is eager to see SpaceX make progress on the orbital refueling plan, seeing it as a potential bottleneck that entails the delicate transfer of thousands of gallons of supercooled, flammable propellants in orbit, three of the people said.”

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