{"id":390190,"date":"2026-04-09T17:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T17:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390190\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T17:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T17:19:09","slug":"with-artemis-2-flying-home-nasa-is-already-teasing-artemis-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390190\/","title":{"rendered":"With Artemis 2 Flying Home, NASA Is Already Teasing Artemis 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s Artemis 2 mission is hurtling back to Earth, targeting a splashdown off the coast of San Diego, California<\/a>, on Friday. As the agency prepares for its return, officials are already discussing the next Artemis mission.<\/p>\n

Artemis 3, slated to launch in 2027, will send the Orion spacecraft and a crew of astronauts to space atop a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. In Earth orbit, Orion will rendezvous with one or both of NASA\u2019s Human Landing Systems to test the docking capabilities needed to land astronauts on the Moon. These two landers are being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin, respectively.<\/p>\n

During Tuesday\u2019s Artemis 2 mission briefing, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said<\/a> officials convened for the first senior-level Artemis 3 mission design discussion earlier that day. Reports this week also suggest<\/a> that the crew selection process is underway, though NASA has not verified those claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can undertake\u2014again\u2014world-changing missions like Artemis 2 right now and get ready for the next ones at the same time,\u201d Isaacman said.<\/p>\n

Artemis 2 paving the way <\/p>\n

Artemis 2 is the first crewed test flight of the SLS and Orion, and it\u2019s been remarkably smooth so far. The SLS had a sparkling clean launch<\/a> after engineers spent weeks addressing hydrogen leaks<\/a> and a helium flow issue<\/a>. Aside from some pesky plumbing problems<\/a> aboard Orion, the spacecraft has been performing beautifully.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe things that we\u2019re going to have to improve upon for Artemis 3 are relatively small and incremental in nature, as opposed to wholesale redesigns of spacecraft subsystems,\u201d NASA Flight Director Rick Henfling said during Tuesday\u2019s briefing.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest hurdles standing in the way of an Artemis 3 launch is finalization of the mission design. According to Isaacman, a key question NASA is currently grappling with is whether the mission\u2019s initial orbit will be in low-Earth orbit or high-Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

There are pros and cons to both scenarios, but the launch cadence of NASA\u2019s commercial HLS providers will also be a deciding factor, the administrator said, adding that both SpaceX and Blue Origin have launches coming up within the next month.<\/p>\n

A long road to Artemis 3 <\/p>\n

Lander readiness is another big hurdle. SpaceX and Blue Origin have been racing to deliver their lunar landers since October, when NASA reopened SpaceX\u2019s HLS contract<\/a> due to significant developmental delays.<\/p>\n

The agency hopes to test both SpaceX\u2019s Starship HLS and Blue Origin\u2019s Blue Moon Lander during Artemis 3. Ultimately, only one of these vehicles will deliver astronauts to the lunar surface for the Artemis 4 mission, currently planned for 2028. That is, if either of them is ready on time.<\/p>\n

Starship HLS will be a modified version of the Starship V3 upper stage. This iteration of Starship is the biggest and most powerful yet, and it\u2019s currently undergoing<\/a> final testing before a debut launch in about four to six weeks, according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.<\/p>\n

During Tuesday\u2019s briefing, Isaacman said Blue Origin\u2019s Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo lander\u2014which will lay the foundation for a crewed lander\u2014is \u201cwrapping up\u201d vacuum-chamber testing at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston.<\/p>\n

Both companies still have a long way to go. In March, NASA\u2019s Office of the Inspector General published an alarming report<\/a> revealing critical gaps in testing and crew survival analyses for both SpaceX and Blue Origin\u2019s prospective landers.<\/p>\n

As these companies race to develop these vehicles and increase the launch cadences of their respective heavy-lift rockets, NASA hopes the Artemis 3 architecture and timing will come into clearer focus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Artemis 2 mission is hurtling back to Earth, targeting a splashdown off the coast of San Diego,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[10557,13265,18356,61,60,91,82,247,5758],"class_list":{"0":"post-390190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-artemis-2","9":"tag-artemis-3","10":"tag-human-spaceflight","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-nasa","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-space","16":"tag-the-moon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}