Posted: Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:15 PM ET (2215 GMT)
The latest obstacle to NASA's plans to return humans to the moon in 2024 is the spacesuit the astronauts would wear. NASA's inspector general concluded in a report released Tuesday that the new spacesuit NASA is developing for lunar missions, called the xEMU, won't be ready until at least April 2025. The report blamed funding shortfalls, technical problems and the pandemic for delays that wiped out the program's 12-month schedule reserve. NASA has spent $420 million on spacesuit development dating back to the Constellation program, and foresees spending $625 million more to complete the xEMU. A change in acquisition strategy where NASA will procure spacesuit services, rather than the suits themselves, could result in suits that don't make use of the investment NASA had already made into the xEMU.

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