(eleventh in a series)
Artemis Missions
We’ve discussed the hardware elements of the Artemis Program: the Orion deep space crew vehicle, its European Space Agency service module, and the heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket, able to send Orion to lunar distances.
Orion got its first try-out in December 2014, on an unpiloted test flight to high earth orbit, using the Delta IV Heavy booster. The Delta IV put Orion into a high, elliptical Earth orbit that successfully demonstrated the spacecraft’s space-worthiness, tested its heat shield during entry into Earth’s atmosphere, and proved the capsule’s recovery systems. This initial 4.5-hour Exploration Demonstration Test 1 mission ended in a Pacific Ocean splashdown, where a US Navy floating dock recovered the spacecraft.
Eight years passed before Orion flew again, this time on the first launch of the mammoth Space Launch System. That Artemis I mission in November/December 2022 saw the second Orion ride the SLS—with 15 percent more liftoff thrust than the Saturn V—off Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center. The 25.5-day mission took the unpiloted Orion well beyond the Moon, 270,000 miles from Earth. After nearly a month in space, Orion splashed down on December 11, 2022.
Artemis I was part of NASA’s effort, directed by President Trump late in his first term, to move up NASA’s lunar landing target date to 2024. NASA didn’t make that deadline, but the target date spurred the Artemis team to aim at returning astronauts to the Moon sooner rather than later. If an administration directed NASA to meet a nebulous, “twenty years from now” goal, nobody at the agency would get excited about that deadline, or work very hard toward realizing it. But the specific, near-term 2024 goal motivated the team, and in the end, achieving it rapidly would cost less to execute than funding it on a stretched-out timeline lasting a decade or more.
The Trump administration’s Artemis direction to NASA was quickly endorsed by the Congress, with Democratic as well as Republican support. The nation is now pushing, along with our partners, for a Moon return by 2028. It will take hard work to meet that deadline, true. But once we have a transportation link between Earth and Moon, NASA can proceed with its goal of establishing a permanent lunar outpost. Experience gained living and working on another world will hone our deep space skills for the challenges of reaching a nearby asteroid, and then Mars, within the next two decades.
Artemis II
In late 2020, NASA selected a subset of its astronaut team to be eligible for the Artemis expeditions. The first of these crews was that of Artemis II: Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremey Hansen, a Canadian astronaut.
Their expedition tested the Orion spacecraft on a looping mission beyond the Moon in April 2026. The entire Artemis II stack, like the Saturn V and shuttle, rolled out to launch pad 39B on a crawler transporter in early 2026. (Pad 39A is leased to SpaceX for Falcon 9 and Starship). Pad 39B was where I launched with my STS-80 crew in November 1996, on our 18-day Columbia mission.
Artemis II lifted off on April 2, 2026, its Space Launch System rocket putting the second stage and Orion spacecraft stack into a temporary low Earth orbit. After a brief checkout of about 2 hours, the second stage—an Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage—reignited to put Orion into a very high Earth orbit, with an orbital period of about 24 hours.
Mission Control used that first day to ensure that Orion’s life support system was functioning properly along with other spacecraft systems. The crew also flew Orion close to the expended second stage, giving the maneuvering thrusters and flight control system a thorough workout.
On Flight Day 2, the crew ignited Orion’s main engine (a recycled space shuttle orbital maneuvering engine) for a 5-minute, 49-second translunar injection burn that put the ship on a looping path past the Moon.
On Flight Day 6, Orion skimmed past the leading edge of the Moon at a distance of 4,067 miles. Lunar gravity then pulled Orion around the far side, at a record distance from Earth of 252,756 miles (breaking Apollo 13’s record). On a slingshot path back to Earth, Orion headed home for a fiery reentry through the atmosphere on Flight Day 10. Protected by its heat shield, the crew observed Orion wrapped in a searing, 5000-degree Fahrenheit plasma as it decelerated into the lower atmosphere. Three main parachutes deployed to slow Artemis II to a Pacific splashdown off California on April 11. It was the first American crewed visit to the Moon since 1972.
Artemis II proved all the elements of the spacecraft–life support, communications, power, and propulsion systems–under deep space conditions. But the mission carried no lander!
Lunar Landing
Yes, Orion can take its crew all the way to lunar orbit. But a single SLS is not powerful enough to send Orion and a lander, capable of many-day stays with perhaps 3 or 4 crew, to the Moon’s surface in a single launch. NASA in 2020 decided to procure lander services commercially. The competition saw one bid from a Blue Origin/Dynetics team, with Lockheed Martin and Draper along as partners. Elon Musk’s Space X also put in a bid, pitching its massive Starship second stage as a lunar lander.
NASA selected SpaceX in 2021, but there were complaints from the other competitors that the selection wasn’t run fairly. In response to the dispute, Congress told NASA to run a second competition to ensure that the agency has a backup lander option. By summer 2023, Musk had retained the primary lander contract, but Blue Origin won a contract to have its Blue Moon lander to be ready about 2028.
SpaceX lunar lander plan calls for about fifteen Super Heavy booster launches into low Earth orbit, each second-stage Starship tanker hauling methane and liquid oxygen (LOX) propellant to fill an orbiting fuel depot. Once filled, a Starship lander would launch atop its Super Heavy, refuel at the LEO propellant depot, and then rocket itself to lunar orbit. There, a crewed Orion will rendezvous with Starship, and the descent crew would shift to the lander. Starship would fire its engines to deorbit and land on the Moon. A single crewman would wait in orbit while Starship and the crew stayed on the surface for about a week.
That’s a complicated plan. Based on my experience with space station assembly, refueling the low-Earth orbit propellant depot with fifteen successive Starships will be a devilish challenge, complicated by repeated rendezvous, dockings, and propellant transfers. Each Starship tanker must launch, fuel the depot’s tanks, and return safely for a quick turnaround and relaunch.
The entire concept depends on an operational and reliable Starship atop its Super Heavy booster. As of July 2026, the Super Heavy/Starship combo has flown thirteen times, increasing the rocket’s performance with each test. Yet the test program has suffered recurrent failures. and has not yet put a Starship into orbit. To be fair, SpaceX sees Starship as a Starlink satellite delivery rocket, and the test series is primarily designed to ready Starship as a reusable satellite hauler. The Artemis lander demonstration has lagged, perhaps because of that focus on the satellite launcher mission.
Of course, NASA is anxious that SpaceX show Starship will quickly demonstrate an ability to land on the Moon, and for that, it must prove that orbital refueling capability. Starship flight 13 in July 2026 was a solid success, putting the second stage into a suborbital trajectory and demonstrating a successful soft splashdown into the Indian Ocean, an achievement roughly similar to a lunar descent. But NASA is still waiting for SpaceX to orbit Starship, demonstrate refueling, and build the propellant depot. Even after more than a dozen test launches, the company is still far from meeting its lander commitment.
To ensure that Artemis has a lander ready for NASA’s first landing attempt in 2028, the agency has asked both SpaceX and Blue Origin to simplify their concepts, hoping to speed development. Blue Origin has proposed a larger variant of its Blue Moon robotic lander to serve as a crewed lander, but Blue Moon will also need some orbital refueling, and it has yet to fly.
NASA wants both Starship and Blue Moon to serve as uncrewed targets for Orion practice dockings in low Earth orbit during Artemis III, planned for late 2027. Artemis IV in 2028 might have a shot at a Moon landing. We’ll talk about whether this is a realistic goal…next time.
Next: Artemis–What Comes Next
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