NASA ’s return to the Moon ’s surface has encountered a significant obstacle . The space agency ’s Inspector General haspublished a reportthat states that the current development of the next - generation spacesuits will preclude a Moon landing place in 2024 , the first scheduled in over 52 years . The new wooing wo n’t be quick for flight until April 2025 at the earliest .
The spacesuit currently in use are known as the Extravehicular Mobility Units ( EMU ) and were plan over 45 eld ago for the Space Shuttle Program . NASA and international pardner have been relying on these ( albeit renovate and partially redesign ) for extravehicular action on the International Space Station ( ISS ) .
exercise on a new spacesuit began 14 years , ago but the Office of Inspector General reports that what has been develop so far wo n’t be ready in sentence for theArtemis Program , NASA ’s ambitious plan to land humans back to the surface of the Moon by 2024 . The suits wererevealed in 2019but even then there were still many obstruction to overcome for them to be ready in time .
The kick upstairs spacesuit is known as the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Units ( xEMU ) and it is design for multiple missions : for low - Earth field with the ISS , in lunar orbital cavity on the upcomingLunar Gateway space station , on the Moon , and one day even on Mars . For this reason , the suit need to be versatile enough for these unlike environs .
The paper shows that the development of the suit has a 20 - month delay . This is partially due to the COVID-19 pandemic , but also due to support shortage and proficient challenge . The exploitation of the new causa is await to be around $ 620 million dollar bill , and two - third of that has already been spent .
“ Given these anticipated time lag in spacesuit development , a lunar landing in late 2024 as NASA currently plan is not feasible , ” thereport summaryreads .
The case delay is a big factor but the Office of the Inspector General mark that there are several time lag on other lively office of the military mission , too . These postponement include the Space Launch System rocket , the Orion space capsule , and the late Moon lander contract tender won by Elon Musk ’s SpaceX andcontested by Jeff Bezos ’ Blue Origin .
The report suggest adjusting the schedule , solidifying the expert requirements for the causa , and developing an acquisition strategy that meets the need for both orbital activeness and lunar geographic expedition . The fresh developed suit will have to be extensively test both on Earth and in space before it is in reality utilise on a lunar mission .
The first Artemis mission , Artemis I will be uncrewed and is expect to launch in a few months , followed by a crewed commission in lunar orbit in 2023 , and then the historical Artemis III to take a crew back down to the surface of our natural satellite .
