NASA announced more delays Thursday in sending astronauts back to the moon more than 50 years after Apollo.
Administrator Bill Nelson said the next mission in the Artemis program – flying four astronauts around the moon and back – is now targeted for April 2026. It had been on the books for September 2025, after slipping from this year.
Disappointing, but not a big surprise. At least they’ve finally shared some info on the heatshield issue:
Although the launch and lunar laps went well, the capsule returned with an excessively charred and eroded bottom heat shield, damaged from the heat of reentry. It took until recently for engineers to pinpoint the cause and come up with a plan.
NASA will use the Orion capsule with its original heat shield for the next flight with four astronauts, according to Nelson, but make changes to the reentry path at flight’s end. To rip off and replace the heat shield would have meant at least a full year’s delay and stalled the moon landing even further, officials said.
During the flight test, NASA had the capsule dip in and out of the atmosphere during reentry, and gases built up in the heat shield’s outer layer, officials said. That resulted in cracking and uneven shedding of the outer material.
When they say “NASA will use the Orion capsule with its original heat shield for the next flight”, are they referring to the original design, or the actual original Artemis I heatshield which has been charred and eroded?
Original design.
And by “rip off and replace”, they mean “remove all the attachment points, not just the tiles”
The writing has been on the wall. Artemis 2, which should just be a repeat of A1, slipping this much and having a 3+ year gap is pretty ridiculous. A3… I wish they had contracted the lander and suits sooner, because delays for development projects like those are “normal”.
