Artemis III: No Moon landing in 2025 as SpaceX keeps missing deadlines
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The US Government Accountability Office said the landing may take place in early 2027 due to delays induced by Elon Musk's SpaceX and Axiom.
USA’s Artemis III mission, which intends to take it back to the Moon, is facing significant roadblocks and is expected to breach its 2025 schedule deadline.
The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Thursday (Nov 30) blamed the delay on two problems: SpaceX’s failure to fully develop its ‘Starship Human Landing System’ or HLS and the delay in developing the Axiom spacesuit, selected especially for lunar operations.
"NASA and its contractors have made progress, including completing several important milestones, but they still face multiple challenges," the GAO noted. "As a result, GAO found that the Artemis III crewed lunar landing is unlikely to occur in 2025," it added.
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Problems with HLS
HLS has so far failed to reach the Earth’s orbit in tests, thus warranting a lot of work before it gets ready for the job.
As per the plans, the Starship will first reach Earth’s orbit unmanned. Astronauts will enter the Spaceship in the Moon’s orbit to get down on the lunar surface. Those humans are expected to get over to our natural satellite using NASA's Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule.
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"NASA documentation states that SpaceX has made limited progress maturing the technologies needed to support this aspect of its plan," the GAO reported.
As per GAO, both SpaceX and HLS have delayed eight out of 13 key programmes. Of those 13 events, at least two will take place in 2025. It means that the 2025 deadline for the overall mission is not expected to be fulfilled.
"If the HLS development takes as many months as NASA major projects do, on average, the Artemis III mission would likely occur in early 2027," the GAO said.
Problems with the spacesuit
And then, the development of the spacesuit has also hit major roadblocks. For example, Axiom missed a key preliminary design review deadline which was scheduled to take place earlier this month.
GAO noted that the spacesuit was still “in the early phases of development."
“So don't expect to tune into another historic Moon landing in late 2025,” GAO concluded.
(With inputs from agencies)
