Nasa has postponed placing humans back on the moon until at least 2025, missing the Trump administration’s target.

Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson announced the postponement on Tuesday, claiming that Congress had not allocated enough funding to develop a landing device for the agency’s Artemis moon programme, and that more funding was needed for the Orion capsule. In addition, a legal challenge by Jeff Bezos’ rocket business, Blue Origin, halted progress on Elon Musk’s SpaceX’s Starship lunar landing device for months.

Vice President Mike Pence, speaking at a National Space Council conference in 2019, urged for astronauts to arrive on the moon “by any means necessary” within five years.

NASA had planned to land on the moon in 2028, and moving it up four years was deemed extremely ambitious, if not impossible, at the time.

In order for NASA to have private businesses competing for the expected 10 or more moon landings by astronauts, Congress will need to raise money beginning with the 2023 budget, Nelson said.

NASA is also proposing an increase in funding for its Orion capsules, from $6.7 billion to $9.3 billion, citing delays caused by the coronavirus epidemic and storm damage to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, which is the major manufacturing facility for SLS and Orion.

The cost of developing the rocket until the maiden Artemis flight next year is estimated to be $11 billion. The first test flight of NASA’s moon rocket, the Space Launch System, or SLS, with an Orion capsule is still scheduled for next February. There will be no one on board.

Instead, astronauts will board the second Artemis mission in 2024, which would take them beyond the moon but not land. According to Nelson, this would push the lunar landing back until at least 2025.

Kamala Harris, the vice president, will head the National Space Council for the first time on December 1st. During their visit to Maryland’s Goddard Space Flight Center on Friday, Nelson said he kept her up to date on the newest timetable and costs.