NASA’s effort to send humans to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo program with the Artemis 3 mission will likely be delayed because it is compromised by “multiple challenges” and an ambitious schedule, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) announced Thursday, Nov. 30. The Artemis 3 mission, currently tentatively scheduled to fly in December 2025, may have to wait until at least 2027.NASA’s Moon missions face numerous delays
Reviewing the documents in light of interviews with NASA and industry officials, GAO reported that there was a significant amount of pending technical work on the human landing system, or HLS, a derivative of SpaceX’s Starship rocket and NASA’s method of transportation to the Moon’s surface. The report also stated that important design studies are continuing to include larger oxygen tanks in the spacesuits that astronauts will use on the Moon.
The HLS will deplete its propellant reservoir just as it enters orbit, so it will need to be refueled before heading to the Moon. Under the current plan, a multi-phase effort would first place a Starship fuel tank in orbit, then multiple tankers would transfer methane and liquid oxygen to the tank so it would be fully refueled before heading to the Moon.The HLS program is currently working towards an official launch in December 2025 and aims to complete its development in a total of 79 months – about a year earlier than the average for major NASA projects, most of which do not involve human spaceflight. But the GAO says SpaceX has made limited progress in maturing these technologies and that timeline is unlikely because complex technical work is ongoing, including figuring out how to transfer propellant in orbit.
Manned mission is not expected before 2027
The HLS program and SpaceX have delayed eight of 13 major milestones by six months to a year, and two of the delayed milestones are currently appearing to be pushed back to 2025, the same year as the planned Artemis 3 launch. The report stated that if the development of the HLS lander takes an average time as other major projects at NASA, the Artemis 3 mission will take place in early 2027.In addition, there are also deficiencies in the spacesuits being developed by Axiom Space. On the other hand, most of the pending work seems to be related to clothing design. According to the report, NASA requires Axiom to develop a suit that can provide 60 minutes of emergency life support, but this requirement has not been met yet. So Axiom now plans to rearrange the spacesuit’s components to accommodate larger oxygen tanks, but if that’s not possible, it will need to modify the current design, which will take more time.
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