NASA announced on Friday a sudden adjustment to its plan for returning astronauts to the lunar surface, deciding to add a new crewed test flight before the official moon landing.
The mission profile for Artemis 3, originally scheduled as the first lunar landing mission as early as 2028, has been completely altered. It will now involve sending a NASA crew capsule into low-Earth orbit to dock with at least one lunar lander prototype developed by either SpaceX or Blue Origin. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman stated the agency hopes to conduct this mission in 2027.
The lunar landing mission originally planned for 2028 will now be redesignated as Artemis 4. Isaacman indicated that NASA actually plans to execute up to two moon landing missions in 2028. However, officials from oversight bodies have already raised serious doubts about the feasibility of this revised timeline.
Isaacman explained that the decision was made to accelerate the launch cadence of the Artemis program. For context, the program's first uncrewed test flight, Artemis 1, launched in November 2022, with a gap of over three years before the first crewed mission, Artemis 2, which is planned to carry four astronauts on a flight around the moon.
"We didn't just go straight to Apollo 11," Isaacman said. "We had the entire Mercury program, the Gemini program, and many Apollo missions before we finally landed on the moon. Our current plan is essentially attempting a moon landing right after an Apollo 8-type mission, which is not a proven path to success."
This announcement comes as NASA continues efforts to advance the launch of Artemis 2. That mission plans to send four astronauts on a test flight around the moon without landing, and was originally scheduled for a February launch. However, these plans were derailed due to issues with NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, including consecutive hydrogen leaks followed by an unexpected failure in the helium transfer system in the rocket's upper stage. These problems caused multiple delays and ultimately led to the decision to roll the rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building. Artemis 2, which will use the SLS rocket and the Orion capsule but will not carry a lunar lander, is now tentatively scheduled for a launch no earlier than April.
**The Lunar Lander Challenge**
While Artemis 2 is positioned as a pathfinder for the lunar landing missions, doubts remain about NASA's ability to achieve an actual moon landing within the 2020s. The SLS and Orion spacecraft are responsible for transporting astronauts from Earth to lunar orbit, but NASA had previously decided to outsource the development of the human landing system, the essential equipment for transporting astronauts from the Orion spacecraft to the lunar surface, to private companies.
Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin both hold fixed-price contracts with NASA to develop their landers. SpaceX plans to use its Starship super-heavy rocket system, a massive rocket initially designed by Musk for Mars travel. Starship is still in early development, with multiple prototypes having exploded during short, suborbital test flights over the past year. Blue Origin is developing a lander with a design more similar to the traditional Apollo-style lander, but it has not yet conducted any test flights.
NASA maintains that a moon landing by 2028 is still achievable and has repositioned Artemis 3 as a 2027 low-Earth orbit rehearsal mission. Concurrently, oversight officials are growing increasingly skeptical of the published schedule. The NASA program overseeing the SpaceX and Blue Origin landers is called the Human Landing System (HLS).
A recent report from NASA's independent oversight body, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), noted: "Over the past year, programmatic and technical risks for these systems have continued to materialize, impacting the overall schedule and risk management for Artemis 3. This is particularly evident for HLS, which faces challenges related to its complex operational design, complex operational concepts, and difficulties encountered in current flight testing. Collectively, these challenges raise doubts about the feasibility of the current Artemis 3 schedule and mission objectives."
Given that the oversight body already doubts whether the landers will be ready for a lunar landing by 2028, the ability of either vehicle to complete a crewed test flight in low-Earth orbit within the next year is also questionable.
When asked about the ASAP report, Isaacman responded, "I believe what we are doing now is exactly what ASAP has asked us to do. There must be a logical path that better aligns with our historical experience. Again, we didn't just jump straight to Apollo 11," he said. "We cannot be satisfied with the current pace."
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