The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s crewed lunar exploration program "Artemis" is again facing schedule setbacks due to delays in developing the key piece of equipment, the lunar lander.
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a report released on the 10th, "NASA's Management of the Human Landing System Contracts," that difficulties in developing the lunar lander are leading to delays across the entire Artemis schedule. It especially projected that the lunar lander under SpaceX's responsibility is unlikely to be ready even by June 2027.
According to the report, SpaceX signed a contract with NASA in July 2021 to develop the lander for the Artemis III mission, but the timeline has slipped by at least about two years so far. The Inspector General's office also noted that additional delays cannot be ruled out.
SpaceX already asked NASA in 2023 for a 15-month delivery extension. Afterward, when NASA pushed the Artemis launch date from December 2024 to after June 2027, the schedule gained an additional nine months of slack. However, even with this adjustment, development progress remains below expectations.
The problem is that even key test milestones are being pushed back. With the cryogenic propellant transfer test between spacecraft, originally slated for March last year, delayed by about a year, analysts said SpaceX is unlikely to meet its goal of delivering the lander by June 2027.
Development of the lander slated for follow-on missions is also not going smoothly. The spacecraft for Artemis IV has been delayed by about six months to date, and the preliminary design review and critical design review have each been pushed back by one year. The Artemis V lander, handled by Blue Origin, has also seen its development start slip at least eight months, from April 2028 to December.
Regarding the situation, Reuters assessed that delays in SpaceX and Blue Origin's lunar lander development are shaking NASA's goal of a crewed lunar landing itself.
The Artemis project is NASA's flagship crewed exploration plan to return humans to the moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. When the first blueprint was unveiled in 2019, the goals were a crewed lunar-orbit flight in 2022 and a lunar landing in 2024. But with a series of technical hurdles such as hydrogen leaks and helium flow issues, the schedule has been repeatedly pushed back.
To date, the only mission actually completed is Artemis I, which sent the uncrewed spacecraft Orion into lunar orbit. As early as next month, NASA plans to significantly revise the mission plan and then proceed with the launch of Artemis II, centered on a crewed flight.