Humans’ Return to the Moon Delayed Again
Space enthusiasts will be disappointed to learn that the wait for humans to set foot on the moon again has been extended, with no landings anticipated until 2028 at the earliest.
This delay is just one of many in the convoluted narrative of American space exploration. It’s quite the tale, featuring everything from stranded astronauts to the growing influence of figures like Elon Musk, and even a sprinkling of celebrity involvement in recent years.
The upcoming moon landing mission is part of Artemis IV, which is scheduled for an early 2028 launch.
Meanwhile, the year 2024 promises chaos as a Boeing astronaut finds themselves stranded in space, requiring a rescue from Musk’s SpaceX program. And in 2025, Jeff Bezos’s New Shepard program faced backlash and ridicule during its all-female celebrity space venture, which coincided awkwardly with real female astronauts working in orbit.
Additionally, 2025 was supposed to mark the launch of NASA’s Artemis III, aimed at being the first crewed mission to the moon’s south pole. But that target has now been pushed back, leaving that achievement seeming increasingly distant.
Currently, Artemis II, which was supposed to be a manned orbit mission to test systems before the actual landing, hasn’t even launched yet. NASA is now looking at a timeline that pushes Artemis II’s mission window into late 2024, further complicating things.
In a surprising twist, NASA has announced that Artemis II has also been delayed, now set for April 2026 or later, and the Artemis III landing mission has a new target date of September 2025. That’s quite the shift, considering the earlier projections.
At the moment, Artemis III aims for a mid-2027 launch, with the entire mission now projected to happen by 2028, but there’s a lot of uncertainty regarding that timeline as well.
The latest updates from NASA hint at more lunar missions, with Artemis V planned by the end of 2028 and subsequent missions lined up each year thereafter. Allegedly, this also aligns with their plans to kick off the construction of a lunar base.
