NASA delays Artemis II moon mission that includes a Canadian astronaut

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen and his team will have to wait to blast off to space after NASA delayed the Artemis II moon mission that was initially scheduled for this November.

In an update Tuesday, the U.S. space agency says the upcoming mission around the moon will be pushed back to September 2025 due to several technical issues and to allow more preparation time.

The next mission, Artemis III, which will land astronauts on the moon for the first time in over 50 years, has been delayed until at least September 2026.

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Hansen’s inaugural space voyage alongside veteran NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover was to be the first crewed flight of the Orion capsule and the first mission to the moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972.

The Artemis II mission involves a lunar flyby, doing a figure-eight manoeuvre around the far side of the moon before heading back to Earth.

Another Canadian astronaut, Jenni Gibbons, was appointed in November as Hansen’s backup.

– With files from The Canadian Press