NASA is holding a briefing Tuesday where Artemis missions are expected to push back the timeline for sending astronauts back to the moon due to delays in contractor deliveries of key components. Named after the sister of Apollo in Greek mythology, Artemis was officially announced in 2017 as part of the US space agency’s plans to establish a permanent presence in Earth’s closest space neighbor and apply the lessons learned there to a future mission to Mars.

Its first mission, an uncrewed test flight to the moon and back, called Artemis 1, is due in 2022 after several delays. The current plan is to launch Artemis 2 with a non-surface crew towards the end of this year. Artemis 3, which will see the first woman and first person of color set foot on lunar soil, will take place in 2025 at the moon’s south pole, where NASA hopes to use ice to produce rocket fuel.

NASA also plans to build a lunar space station called Gateway, where spacecraft will dock during future missions. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has won the tender for a landing system based on a version of the Artemis 3 prototype Starship rocket that is far from ready. Both orbital tests so far have resulted in explosions.

At best, Starship delays have consequences because the suit contractor needs to know how the suits will interact with the spacecraft, and simulators need to be created so astronauts can examine their systems.

“As of March 2023, NASA has committed approximately $40 billion to 860 contractors to support the Artemis campaign,” the monitor’s official report, published in October 2023, said.

The space agency “did not have full visibility into the Artemis campaign’s subcontractors or subcontract suppliers,” preventing it from dealing with “numerous and persistent” supply chain issues that contributed to the delays, the report said.

A key difference between the 20th-century Apollo missions and the Artemis era is the increasing role of commercial partnerships, part of a broader strategy to involve private companies in space exploration to reduce costs and make space more accessible.

For example, the space agency paid Astrobotic more than $100 million to transport critical science probes to the mid-latitude region of the Moon. This mission, launched this weekend, appears to have failed due to critical fuel loss due to a problem with the propulsion system.