NASA's Artemis Program

What it is

Artemis is NASA's program to return US-led crews to the Moon, the first time humans will land there since Apollo 17 in December 1972. The core hardware stack has three layers: the Space Launch System (SLS), a 98-meter heavy-lift rocket capable of sending Orion plus crew directly to lunar orbit; the Orion crew capsule, which sustains up to four astronauts on deep-space missions and carries a European Service Module built by the European Space Agency; and two commercially contracted Human Landing Systems (HLS), SpaceX's Starship variant and Blue Origin's Blue Moon, which ferry astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface and back. A small lunar-orbiting station called Gateway, built in partnership with ESA, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and JAXA, will support surface missions from Artemis V onward.

History

Congress authorized what became SLS in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act. Space Policy Directive 1, signed by US President Donald Trump in December 2017, retargeted NASA toward the Moon; the Biden administration kept the goal but compressed timelines. The program's name and crew policy, including the commitment to land the first woman and first person of color, were formalized in 2019. Artemis I, an uncrewed shakeout, launched November 16, 2022 after years of delays; Orion flew 1.4 million miles and completed a 25.5-day mission. The Artemis Accords, a US State Department-NASA framework for bilateral civil space agreements, were signed on October 13, 2020 by eight founding nations, and grew to 68 signatories by late June 2026.

Current state

Artemis II, the first crewed mission, flew April 1-10, 2026. US astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, together with CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen, completed a lunar flyby and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off California. The crew traveled 695,081 miles, surpassing the record Apollo 13 set in April 1970. On February 27, 2026, NASA restructured the next phase: the Exploration Upper Stage and Mobile Launcher 2 were cancelled, and SLS is standardized at Block 1 configuration. A new mission, now designated Artemis III, inserts a commercial lander demonstration in low Earth orbit in mid-2027, testing SpaceX Starship and Blue Origin Blue Moon before astronauts depend on them at the Moon. The first actual lunar landing is targeted as Artemis IV in early 2028, with Artemis V following in late 2028.

Relationships

The Artemis Accords framework now covers 68 nations across six continents, establishing norms on transparency, interoperability, and conflict deconfliction for lunar activities. Because the Accords are bilateral agreements rather than a treaty, they bypassed US Senate ratification. Neither Russia, which withdrew in 2021, nor China has signed. China is running a parallel crewed lunar program with a stated 2030 landing goal; the robotic Chang'e 7 mission is a precursor. The trajectory of the Artemis Accords is a direct measure of how much of the world aligns with the US governance model before any crew touches the lunar surface.

What to watch

The mid-2027 LEO lander demonstration is the next hard decision node: both SpaceX and Blue Origin must prove rendezvous and docking capabilities before astronauts commit to a surface descent. A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket exploded in May 2026, adding pressure on the company's schedule. If either provider slips, NASA's early-2028 landing target moves. The fuller programmatic picture after Artemis II's success, including which lander flies first, is laid out in After Artemis II's lunar flyby, NASA turns to the harder Artemis III landing. On geopolitics, the count of Artemis Accords signatories before 2028 will determine whether US-led norms become the default framework for the era of permanent lunar outposts.