Artemis program

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The Artemis program brought the Orion spacecraft home on the 11th of December 2022. That date matched exactly 50 years since Apollo 17 made humanity's last crewed landing on the Moon. The capsule fell through the atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California. It carried mannequins and robotic payloads, not a crew. The mission had traced more than 1.4 million miles around the Moon and back. Apollo 17 had closed NASA's first lunar chapter on the 11th of December 1972. Artemis opened the new one half a century later.

  Four years on, the 1st of April 2026, Artemis II lifted off carrying the first human crew to travel beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo era. Those four astronauts completed a nine-day arc around the Moon before their capsule also fell into the Pacific. Their flight was historic, but it was only the second step in a program designed to keep going back.

  The questions that shaped those flights go back to 2005 and forward to the 2030s. How NASA assembled this program, and whether it can sustain its ambitions long enough to build a permanent base at the lunar South Pole, is the story that follows.

• 2. Salvaged Hardware

  ›

  The NASA Authorization Act of 2005 first set NASA on a path toward the Moon. That legislation created the Constellation program, built around two new rockets: the Ares I and the Ares V. The plan included an Orion crew capsule and envisioned crewed lunar landings within the following decade.

  The Augustine Committee, established by President Obama in May 2009, examined whether that goal was achievable. Constellation, the committee found, was massively underfunded. A Moon landing by 2020 was simply not possible. Those findings gave the Obama administration the basis for a major policy shift.

  On the 15th of April 2010, Obama spoke at the Kennedy Space Center and announced the cancellation of all Constellation elements except Orion. In their place, he proposed $6 billion in additional NASA funding. He called for a new heavy-lift rocket program to be ready for construction by 2015. Crewed missions to Mars orbit by the mid-2030s were also part of the vision.

  On the 11th of October 2010, Obama signed the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 into law. The act required immediate development of the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft. Both programs would draw on the workforce and assets of the Space Shuttle and Constellation programs. Crewed missions beyond low Earth orbit were targeted to begin by 2016. Booster upgrades originally developed for the Ares V would find a new home inside SLS.

  Lockheed Martin first conceived Orion as a proposal for the Crew Exploration Vehicle in the Constellation program. Following Constellation's cancellation, Orion was heavily redesigned. Its European Service Module, manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space, replaced an earlier design based on the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle. The capsule supports a crew of six and features a glass cockpit modeled on the instruments of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

  The Ascent Abort-2 test on the 2nd of July 2019 confirmed that Orion's abort system could pull the capsule free at the moment of maximum aerodynamic pressure. It was a critical safety milestone before the first crewed mission.

• 3. Named for a Goddess

  ›

  On the 30th of June 2017, President Trump signed an executive order re-establishing the National Space Council, with Vice President Mike Pence as its chair. The administration's first budget preserved the human spaceflight programs Obama had left in place, including the Space Launch System and Orion.

  On the 11th of December 2017, Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1. The directive called for a U.S.-led return to the Moon, followed by missions to Mars. NASA was charged with organizing government agencies, private companies, and international partners toward that goal. The policy authorized drawing on existing assets, including Orion, the Lunar Gateway space station, and Commercial Lunar Payload Services. It also created the new Human Landing System program.

  On the 26th of March 2019, Pence announced an acceleration of the timeline. The crewed Moon landing goal was moved up to 2024. On the 16th of May 2019, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine gave the campaign its name. He chose Artemis, goddess of the Moon in Greek mythology and twin sister of Apollo. The sibling relationship between the two names was deliberate.

  In mid-2019, NASA requested $1.6 billion in additional funding for fiscal year 2020. The following February, the White House asked Congress for a 12% budget increase. That would have brought NASA's total annual budget to $25.2 billion, with $3.7 billion dedicated to the Human Landing System. The House Appropriations Committee rejected the request in July 2020. Congress offered only $700 million for the HLS, about 81 percent less than what NASA had asked for.

  On the 4th of February 2021, the Biden administration endorsed the program. Acting Administrator Steve Jurczyk was candid about the consequences of the funding gap. The 2024 lunar landing goal, he said, may no longer be a realistic target.

• 4. The Landing System Contest

  ›

  In April 2020, NASA awarded ten-month study contracts to three companies: Blue Origin, Dynetics, and SpaceX. Each would design a preliminary Human Landing System. Only one would win the contract to build and fly it.

  On the 16th of April 2021, NASA made its selection. The agency contracted SpaceX to develop, manufacture, and fly two lunar landing missions. SpaceX would use the Starship HLS, a configuration of Starship designed specifically for lunar landings and takeoffs. Blue Origin and Dynetics both filed protests with the Government Accountability Office on April 26. The GAO rejected both.

  Blue Origin then sued NASA directly. The agency agreed to halt work on the SpaceX contract until November 1 while the lawsuit proceeded. A federal judge dismissed Blue Origin's suit on November 4, and work resumed.

  On the 15th of November 2021, NASA's Office of Inspector General issued a separate cost estimate. The full cost of the Artemis program, the audit found, was about $93 billion through 2025.

  A Starship HLS mission, as SpaceX's Jennifer Jensen confirmed in 2024, requires ten refueling launches before a crew can descend to the surface. Other analyses placed that number at fifteen or more. Each launch must deliver propellant to a depot in orbit before the lander is fueled and cleared for the Moon. This complexity drew criticism from several directions.

  Aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society, proposed an alternative called Moon Direct. His plan would phase out the SLS and Orion, replacing them with SpaceX vehicles. Propellant for the lander would come from in-situ resources extracted directly on the lunar surface. Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin expressed similar reservations about the outpost approach. Aldrin questioned the value of sending a crew to an intermediate point in space just to pick up a lander and go down.

  NASA also awarded separate HLS development contracts in May 2019 and September 2021, funding competing designs alongside the primary SpaceX effort. These additional rounds were intended to address Congressional concerns about the lack of redundancy in the landing system.

• 5. Steps to the Surface

  ›

  Before Artemis I, Orion had already flown once. On the 5th of December 2014, a prototype crew module launched atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket on Exploration Flight Test-1. The mission completed two medium Earth orbits and reached an apogee of 5,800 kilometers. Orion crossed the Van Allen radiation belts and re-entered the atmosphere at 32,000 kilometers per hour.

  Artemis I launched from the Kennedy Space Center at 01:47:44 Eastern Time on the 16th of November 2022. A series of delays had pushed the original 2016 target back by more than six years. Orion entered a polar distant retrograde lunar orbit and remained there for about six days. When it returned, engineers found that the capsule's ablative heat shield had suffered greater erosion than expected during reentry. That finding would shape preparation for future missions.

  Artemis II, on the 1st of April 2026, was the first crewed test of the SLS and Orion. The four crew members put the spacecraft through extensive systems testing in high Earth orbit. The spacecraft was then directed into a free-return trajectory around the Moon. Unlike Apollo 8, which had orbited the Moon, Artemis II flew a more distant flyby. The capsule splashed down on April 11 at 00:07 UTC, nine days after launch. The mission's scope was broadly comparable to a combination of Apollo 7 and Apollo 8.

  Artemis III, planned for late 2027, will be the first mission to test a lunar lander in space. The crew will reach Earth orbit on SLS and Orion. There, they will conduct rendezvous and docking tests with one or both commercial landers launched separately. SpaceX's Starship HLS and Blue Origin's Blue Moon are both candidates. The mission is also expected to include the first flight of the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit and is broadly comparable in scope to Apollo 9.

  Artemis IV, targeting early 2028, aims to be the first American crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17 in December 1972. Four astronauts will transfer from Orion to a lander in lunar orbit and descend to the surface. The plan includes at least two extravehicular activities before the crew returns to Orion for the journey home. Artemis V, scheduled for late 2028, adds a new objective to that same framework: beginning the construction of a permanent lunar base.

• 6. Home at the South Pole

  ›

  In 2022, NASA identified 13 candidate landing regions near the lunar South Pole. The floors of permanently shadowed craters in that area are believed to hold water ice. Two adjacent craters, Shackleton and de Gerlache, define the zone NASA has selected for the Artemis Base Camp.

  The Base Camp's design centers on three elements. A Surface Habitat will provide the initial dwelling structure for the first residents. A Lunar Terrain Vehicle will transport suited crews and cargo around the landing site. Pressurized Rovers will allow multi-day excursions stretching tens of kilometers from the base. Together, the installation is designed to support missions lasting up to two months.

  The Lunar Terrain Vehicle must carry 800 kilograms of cargo. It must travel 20 kilometers on a single charge and operate continuously for eight hours within any 24-hour period. The vehicle must survive the extreme cold of the lunar night and traverse grades as steep as 20 degrees. On the 3rd of April 2024, NASA selected three companies for a twelve-month feasibility and demonstration phase: Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolab. Their proposals ranged from $1.692 billion for Intuitive Machines to $1.928 billion for Astrolab.

  Japan's space agency, JAXA, agreed on the 9th of April 2024 to design and operate the Pressurized Rover. In exchange, NASA committed to launching and delivering the rover to the Moon. NASA also agreed to fly two Japanese astronauts to the lunar surface on future missions. Those astronauts would be the first non-Americans to walk on the Moon. NASA plans to use the pressurized rover from Artemis VII onward, with an expected operational lifespan of approximately ten years.

  Italy's space agency signed a contract with Thales Alenia Space in late 2023 for the Multi Purpose Habitation module. That agreement may provide the Base Camp's second permanent structure. The Surface Habitat itself is planned for a commercial build and launch in the early 2030s. Once the habitat and pressurized vehicle arrive, the base is expected to operate regularly for decades through both government and commercial programs.

• 7. Dressing for the Moon

  ›

  Two types of spacesuit were unveiled for the Artemis program in October 2019. The first is the Orion Crew Survival System, developed by the David Clark Company for launch and reentry. Primarily colored international orange, the suits are designed to help recovery crews spot astronauts against the ocean and sky after splashdown. Each suit is custom-fitted and includes flotation devices. In the event of a cabin pressure emergency aboard Orion, the OCSS can sustain pressurized life support for up to 144 hours.

  NASA's internally developed lunar surface suit, the xEMU, ran into serious delays. A 2021 audit by the NASA Office of Inspector General found the xEMU would not be ready before 2025. In response, NASA shifted to a commercial development model and in 2022 selected Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to develop the lunar suit. Collins later withdrew from the contract in 2024.

  Axiom's Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or AxEMU, became the program's primary lunar surface suit. It entered critical design review and testing in 2024. By February 2026, the AxEMU had passed internal reviews and was being further evaluated by NASA. Assembly of the first flight unit was already underway following pressurized and underwater mobility testing at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. In April 2026, Axiom confirmed it was targeting an in-orbit test of the suit in 2027. Whether that test would occur on the Artemis III flight or aboard the International Space Station had not yet been decided.