spacetoday.net: NASA report warns of further Artemis delays

Posted: Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 10:46 AM ET (1546 GMT)
NASA's inspector general warned of further delays in NASA's Artemis program to return humans to the moon. In a report Monday, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) said that development of the Human Landing System lunar lander will likely take far longer than what NASA and SpaceX project. Based on the experience from other recent spaceflight systems, OIG estimated a delay of up to to 3.4 years from the original date of late 2024 for the first crewed landing. NASA last week pushed back that landing to no earlier than 2025. The report also called on NASA to improve cost accounting for the overall Artemis program, projecting that NASA will spend $93 billion on it from 2012 through 2025. The report also pegged the cost of a single SLS/Orion mission at $4.1 billion.