by Humanity’s plans to return to the Moon are faltering. As announced this Tuesday by the American space agency NASA, which is currently leading the most ambitious lunar exploration program of our era, everything Artemis mission schedule delayed at least one year compared to initial estimates. This implies that astronauts will not be sent to the Moon until at least September 2026.
he initial calendar of the Artemis lunar program proposed the following. In 2022, Artemis 1 was supposed to take off, and it did; a technical flight to test the ‘Space Launch System’ vehicle and NASA’s Orion spacecraft. Artemis 2 was due to be launched in 2024; a manned mission that would reach the Moon but without landing on it. Finally, in 2025, Artemis 3 was expected; the first mission that would put astronauts on lunar soil in more than fifty years. And that is when, at least in theory, we would see the steps of the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon. Everything indicates that this objective It will be achieved but at a much slower pace. than expected.
Several chained space failures
The decision comes in a critical moment for the space sector. Especially after the chained failures (or, as some argue, the “partial success”) of several key missions for humanity’s return to the Moon. In April, for example, the American company SpaceX failed in its first Starship rocket attempt: the vehicle selected to take a future generation of astronauts to the Moon. The device managed to take off but exploded a few minutes into the flight and left the launch pad completely destroyed.
The two Starship launches have ended with the rocket in flames, making it still not suitable for transporting astronauts.
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Seven months later, in November, the company headed by Elon Musk tried again and achieved another bitter failure. In this case, the rocket managed to take off, it even reached space but, It finally ended up exploding like its predecessor. The most optimistic speak of “partial success.” But of course, whatever euphemism is used to describe the outcome of this mission, Starship has not yet achieved a completely triumphant flight. And in the absence of a resounding victory, the great promise of using this rocket to return humanity to the surface of the Moon begins to crumble.
Another event that could have happened destabilized the calendar of return to the Moon It is the failed trip of ‘Peregrino’, the first private mission that aspired to land on the Moon. POT invested more than 100 million dollars in this space module so that, among others, you will carry a series of scientific instruments (and ‘payload’) to the lunar surface for future manned missions. This spacecraft, launched on Monday morning, suffered a serious technical failure just six hours after takeoff and, according to Astrobiotics, it will not reach the Moon.
