NASA’s Artemis mission to take humans back to the Moon has been delayed until 2025

NASA has pushed back its timeline for its Artemis missions that would send human beings to the Moon, including landing on the south pole. The first of these, Artemis II, will launch in September 2025 and will orbit the Earth’s satellite, with the landing mission, Artemis III, now planned for a year later in September 2026. Artemis IV remains on track with a 2028 launch planned, the agency wrote in its announcement today.

The future missions are intended to “establish the foundation for long-term scientific exploration at the Moon” and would “land the first woman and the first person of color” on its surface. NASA said that it is pushing the missions back primarily to make sure its crew is safe, as the agency needs to resolve a battery issue and work on circuitry related to environmental systems, including air ventilation.

Artemis I launched in 2022, sending NASA’s Orion capsule to orbit and giving the agency data that led to its decision to push these missions back. “We are letting the hardware talk to us so that crew safety drives our decision-making. We will use the Artemis II flight test, and each flight that follows, to reduce risk for future Moon missions,” said Catherine Koerner, NASA’s associate administrator of its Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate.