A new manned landing on the Moon will not be possible until 2025, the first manned flight under the Artemis program to the Moon’s orbit will take place no earlier than May 2024, NASA head Bill Nelson said at a briefing, for the first time officially updating the schedule of the program for returning Americans to The moon.
“The first manned flight of the Artemis 2 mission … will take place no earlier than May 2024, … the first landing (on the moon) will take place no earlier than 2025,” the head of NASA said.
He explained that the delay was caused, among other things, by an attempt by the commercial company Blue Origin to challenge NASA’s award of a $ 2.9 billion contract to create SpaceX’s lunar landing module. “We lost almost six months,” Nelson admitted.
At the time of consideration of Blue Origin’s claim, all work under the contract was suspended. Last week, the court refused to consider the company’s lawsuit against NASA, formally ending the proceedings.
The Donald Trump administration has announced an ambitious plan to return Americans to the moon in 2024. The Artemis program envisages first unmanned and manned flights to the Moon, the creation of a circumlunar orbital station, and then a person landing on the lunar surface. With the arrival of the new NASA leadership under the Biden administration, the goal of returning to the moon has been preserved, but the timing has not changed significantly to date.
