{"id":554151,"date":"2026-03-30T12:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/554151\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T12:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:18:08","slug":"key-milestones-in-nasas-artemis-moon-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/554151\/","title":{"rendered":"Key milestones in NASA’s Artemis moon program"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 30 (Reuters) – NASA’s Artemis program is the U.S. effort to return astronauts to the moon for the first time since the Apollo era and eventually establish a sustained human presence there, a goal Washington has framed as central to maintaining space leadership amid growing \u200ccompetition from China. Here are key milestones in the Artemis program:<\/p>\n

2017\u20132018: Program revived<\/p>\n

During the first administration of President Donald Trump, NASA was directed to refocus \u200chuman spaceflight on the moon after years of prioritizing Mars. The lunar effort would be built around the Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule, hardware first conceived under the previous, since canceled \u200bConstellation program, with Boeing serving as the prime contractor for the SLS core stage, Northrop Grumman producing the rocket\u2019s solid-fuel boosters, and Lockheed Martin building the Orion spacecraft.<\/p>\n

2019: Accelerated timeline set<\/p>\n

In 2019, the White House set a target of landing astronauts on the moon by 2024. Though the “Moon to Mars” program wouldn’t get its name Artemis until months later, NASA outlined a three-mission sequence: Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight; Artemis II, a crewed moon flyby; and Artemis III, a landing on the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

2020\u20132021: \u200cDelays mount, moon lander selected<\/p>\n

Technical challenges, cost overruns and \u2060COVID pandemic-related disruptions pushed back schedules for the SLS rocket, Orion spacecraft and launch infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center. NASA picked SpaceX’s Starship as the program’s first lunar lander, keeping the landing target of 2024 but acknowledging it may no longer be \u2060achievable.<\/p>\n

2022: Artemis I flies<\/p>\n

In November 2022, NASA launched Artemis I, sending an uncrewed Orion spacecraft around the moon and back during a 25-day mission. The flight tested deep-space navigation, communications and Orion’s heat shield during a high-speed reentry, a critical step before flying with astronauts.<\/p>\n

2023\u20132024: Program recalibrated<\/p>\n

Jeff Bezos<\/a>‘ Blue Origin is tapped as NASA’s second lunar lander provider in \u200b2023 after \u200bmonths of legal disputes over the agency’s decision to only pick SpaceX’s Starship. Later, under \u200bthe administration of President Joe Biden, NASA reset Artemis timelines, \u200cpushing the first crewed lunar landing to 2027. The agency continued to defend the program amid budget scrutiny, while highlighting China’s parallel lunar ambitions.<\/p>\n

2024: Artemis II crew named<\/p>\n

NASA announced the four astronauts for Artemis II: Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The mission will be the first crewed voyage toward the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.<\/p>\n

2026: Artemis program overhauled under new leadership<\/p>\n

After taking office, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced a sweeping overhaul of the Artemis program, scrapping plans for the Lunar Gateway \u2014 a space station intended to orbit the moon \u2014 and redirecting its components toward building a permanent base on the lunar surface. \u200cHe also added an additional crewed mission ahead of a lunar landing, arguing that the \u200bextra flight would help crews and ground teams build operational \u201cmuscle memory\u201d in deep space before attempting \u200bsustained surface missions.<\/p>\n

April 2026: Artemis II mission around the moon<\/p>\n

In April 2026, \u200bNASA is set to launch Artemis II, a roughly 10-day mission that will send four astronauts on a crewed flyby of \u200cthe moon, the first such voyage since the Apollo era. The \u200bmission will not land on the lunar \u200bsurface but will push astronauts farther from Earth than any human flight, testing Orion’s life-support systems, navigation, communications and heat shield performance in deep space \u2014 capabilities NASA says are essential before attempting a lunar landing.<\/p>\n

Later this decade: moon landing planned<\/p>\n

Artemis is intended to return astronauts to the lunar surface \u200busing a commercially developed lander, a step NASA says \u200cis essential before future missions to Mars. Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are competing to provide the lunar lander, part of \u200bNASA\u2019s push to enlist private companies in delivering hardware for deep\u2011space exploration. The first moon-walking Artemis crew is expected to take whichever \u200blander completes development first.<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Joe Brock in Los Angeles; Editing by Bill Berkrot)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 30 (Reuters) – NASA’s Artemis program is the U.S. effort to return astronauts to the moon for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[504,42141,115400,71987,246309,246307,125998,144306,718,98243,246308,79,193],"class_list":["post-554151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-artemis","tag-artemis-ii","tag-artemis-iii","tag-artemis-program","tag-constellation-program","tag-landing-astronauts-on-the-moon","tag-lunar-lander","tag-lunar-surface","tag-nasa","tag-nasa-administrator","tag-orion-crew-capsule","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}