Five years ago, then-President Donald Trump promised to put Americans back on the moon by 2024. Five years later, American astronauts are still cooling their heels down here on Earth. Although Artemis I successfully took off and flew to the moon in 2022, it didn't land on the moon, and there were no astronauts on board.
Now it looks like we'll need to wait until 2026 (at the earliest) before we can land on the moon.
Image source: Getty Images.
When are we back on the moon, NASA?
So what's the hold up? First and foremost, it's a question of getting the several parts needed for a moon landing in place: a Lunar Gateway space station in orbit around the moon, an Orion space capsule with astronauts to dock with it, and a SpaceX-built Human Landing System (HLS) to carry those astronauts down to the moon and then back up to the Gateway.
Also needed before a moon landing can happen: Testing.
Several pieces of the whole apparatus need to be tested before the moon landing can happen. SpaceX must prove its Starship can get to orbit and then to the moon. HLS will need to prove it can land on the moon and launch itself back up to the Gateway. And an Artemis II mission will need to be flown -- with astronauts on board this time -- to the moon and back to Earth.
Simply put, there's a lot of work that still needs to be done for Project Artemis to work. Too much work to accomplish a moon landing this year, or even next year, at the rate things are progressing. Recognizing this, NASA finally gave in earlier this month and admitted "we must be realistic."
A 2024 moon landing isn't going to happen. Nor a landing in 2025. And so NASA is moving the goalposts out to 2026.
A new lunar calendar
As NASA associate administrator Jim Free described earlier this month, the new plan is to shift Artemis II (the crewed mission to circle the moon and land back on Earth) out one year, to 2025, and Artemis III (the crewed mission to land on the moon and then come back to Earth) to 2026. A fourth crewed mission, Artemis IV, will return to the moon for a second landing in 2028.
Free explained that, in addition to all the other issues noted above, NASA also needs to practice fuel transfers in orbit (to gas up Starship for its trip from Earth orbit to the moon). A NASA contractor also needs more time to develop next-generation space suits for the astronauts. Finally, and most worrisome, are issues with the Orion spaceship that Lockheed Martin (LMT 0.27%) built to carry astronauts from Earth to the Lunar Gateway and then back from the Gateway to land on Earth.
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The trouble with Orion
Returning to Earth after the Artemis I flight, Lockheed Martin's Orion space capsule lost part of its heat shield during reentry. NASA spent much of 2023 trying to discover "a root cause" to the heat shield's issues and hasn't figured out a fix just yet.
Additional issues were noted with batteries in the space capsule's abort system, as well as design flaws in circuitry controlling motor valves in the spacecraft. Curiously, Ars Technica reported this valve circuitry is the "pacing issue" determining when Orion is ready to fly for Artemis II. But anything related to heat shields raises echoes of the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when a damaged heat shield doomed the spacecraft upon reentry.
What it means to investors
Right now, that means that Lockheed Martin is primarily responsible for delaying Artemis II and by extension Artemis III, thus postponing America's return to the moon. But these may not be the only delays investors need to worry about when figuring when future spaceflights will launch and when the tens of billions of dollars of expected future revenues will roll in.
After Orion's problems are fixed, attention should shift to SpaceX, its Super Heavy booster rocket, and its Starship spacecraft. Can SpaceX get Starship into orbit without blowing up? Can it figure out the mechanics of orbital fuel storage and refueling? Can it launch enough times to get enough fuel in orbit to tank up not one but two separate HLS landers for their trips to the moon?
And can it do all of the above in time for a 2026 moon landing?
So far, SpaceX is saying it can do all of this, and NASA takes SpaceX at its word. If the company succeeds, it will win the honor of landing astronauts on the moon for the first time in a half century and increase its technological lead over the rest of the space industry. It will also open the floodgates for contracts to flow to a whole host of space companies involved in Project Artemis.
Despite the delays, it's only a matter of time.
