The White House on Tuesday directed NASA to establish a unified standard of time for the moon and other celestial bodies, as the United States aims to set international norms in space amid a growing lunar race among nations and private companies. The head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), according to a memo seen by Reuters, instructed the space agency to work with other parts of the U.S. government to devise a plan by the end of 2026 for setting what it called a
NASA announced Tuesday it will delay its Artemis launches to "work through challenges" and "ensure crew safety," as the space agency targets 2026 to return astronauts to the moon.
NASA is set to delay its next few missions to the moon under a key program as technical hurdles mount with the various spacecraft it intends to use to get there, according to four people familiar with NASA's plans. The U.S. space agency is expected to announce the plans on Tuesday after spending months tracking progress with contractors and considering changes to the Artemis program, a multi-billion dollar effort that includes returning the first astronauts to the moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972. NASA's second Artemis mission is expected to be pushed beyond its planned late-2024 target after issues were uncovered with the Lockheed Martin-built Orion crew capsule's batteries during vibration tests, two of the people said.