NASA is embarking on a new “moonshot” mission, aiming to return astronauts to the moon by early 2028. This ambitious goal involves putting astronauts on the lunar surface within 24 months, a tight timeline considering the current lack of finished lunar landers from contractors like Blue Origin and SpaceX.
While SpaceX has been testing its Starship rocket for lunar missions, it has not yet produced a fully operational version. Similarly, Blue Origin faced setbacks with its New Glenn rocket’s failed satellite deployment last month. These delays raise doubts about NASA’s ability to meet its tight deadline, given the agency’s history of project delays with initiatives such as the space shuttle and the ISS.
NASA recently announced a shift in its Artemis program, pausing the Lunar Gateway space station construction and rescheduling the first crewed lunar landing to Artemis IV in 2028. However, the absence of ready-to-use lunar landers poses a significant challenge to meeting the revised timeline. Experts like Paul Fjeld and Philip Stooke express skepticism about NASA’s ability to achieve its goals by 2028, given the technical and logistical hurdles that need to be overcome.
Furthermore, concerns exist about the complexity of refueling missions in space and the untested capabilities of the lunar landers for crewed missions. SpaceX and Blue Origin must demonstrate ship-to-ship fuel transfer and conduct successful test flights before NASA approves any lunar mission. The U.S. Office of the Inspector General raised issues about SpaceX’s human landing system design and highlighted potential risks due to the larger size of modern landers compared to those used during the Apollo era.
With various technical challenges and uncertainties surrounding the timeline, it remains questionable whether NASA can accomplish its moon landing mission by 2028. The competition from China, which aims to land humans on the moon by 2032, adds further pressure on NASA to expedite its lunar exploration efforts.
