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To achieve the national goal of landing American astronauts on the surface of the Moon and maintaining U.S. superiority in exploration and discovery, NASA announced Feb. 27 it is increasing its cadence of missions under the Artemis program, standardizing the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket configuration, and adding a new mission.
The plans were shared during a news conference at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and included an update on the near-term mission, Artemis II.
This update focused on the transportation systems to take crew to the Moon. NASA’s latest architecture includes adding a new mission in 2027 to test system capabilities closer to home prior to sending astronauts to the surface of the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years and aims to achieve one lunar mission per year thereafter. Standardizing SLS and other systems now will help NASA send astronauts to explore the lunar South Pole for the first time in 2028.
Specific details to achieve this new approach as well as other architecture updates are forthcoming as the agency remains focused on the Artemis II mission around the Moon as early as April, and reviews capabilities to support an increased mission cadence.
Here are the basics for the first five missions under the Artemis program:
Artemis I: NASA successfully completed an uncrewed test flight of SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft in November 2022. This mission tested launching the rocket for the first time using new exploration ground systems and evaluated Orion systems not including astronauts or critical life support systems planned on the next mission.
Artemis II: The test flight will be the first flight with crew aboard the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft. Fo …