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The recent Artemis II mission was an incredible, record breaking success. The mission took humans further away from the Earth than had ever been accomplished before. The four astronauts traveled out around the moon and back safely.
While there were some little glitches involving email and a toilet, the mission as a whole was a massive success.
When it comes to space exploration, however, the success of one mission does not automatically mean the next one will go off as planned, and that seems to be the case here.
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman recently came out and announced that Artemis III, which was slated to land on the moon, would instead meet up with lunar landers in low-earth orbit to test various functions. These lunar landers are being made by SpaceX and Blue Origin, two private space companies.
In addition to pushing the actual moon landings off to future missions, the timeline for Artemis III was also delayed from mid-2027 to the end of that year.
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The original plan for future Artemis missions was to have Artemis III launched by SpaceX’s Starship to the moon in 2027 and again in 2028. In 2030, Artemis V would visit the lunar surface again, but this time launched by Blue Origin’s Blue Moon craft.
The updated plan has Artemis III going into low-Earth orbit to perform a variety of tests on the landers in late 2027. Artemis IV and Artemis V are still slated to land on the moon in mid and late 2028 respectively, but some analysists believe that pushing back the dates for Artemis III will also require them to delay IV and V.
To make matters worse, a 23% cut to NASA’s budget has been proposed and discussed by the Trump Administration, which could dramatically impact the agency’s ability to execute on their goals. Of course, it is unlikely that the full 23% cut will occur, but even a much more modest reduction in funding could have impacts to the missions for years to come.
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Whenever the missions do happen, it will continue to be exciting to see humans continue to push beyond previous limits in an effort to not just study, but actually explore the universe around us.
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