NASA has been racing over the years to return people to the moon’s surface in 2025. Since after this feat was achieved in 1972, no human crew have arrived the lunar surface. The 2025 date has now suffered a setback as the space agency have announced a later date for the mission it dubbed, Artemis III.
According to the agency, the shift is necessitated by inadequate technology for the mission. The shift will enable further technology development and minimize the risks associated with such complex moon mission, NASA says.
A precursor mission which NASA calls Artemis II was billed to be launched late this year. This is meant to be a crewed Moon mission where astronauts will fly around the moon without landing. The Artemis II Moon mission according to NASA has also been pushed forward till late 2025. Although several tech companies are racing to achieve moon missions, the complex nature of moon mission requires more precise technology.
The moon is located at over 384 thousand kilometers away from the earth. Earlier moon missions took an average of about 3 days for humans to land on the moon surface. With better technology, maybe new moon missions may land earlier than 3 days.
NASA believes that it has laid out all the technical plans to achieve Artemis II and Artemis III missions in 2025 and 2026 respectively.
With the complex technology needed to achieve the moon mission, it is unclear if there would be a perfect technology for the September 2026 date for Artermis III to be achieved. NASA believes that it has laid out all the technical plans to achieve Artemis II and Artemis III missions in 2025 and 2026 respectively.
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