NASA Makes a “Course Correction” for the Artemis Program

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman revealed a reconfigured plan for the Artemis program today that increases the cadence of launches and adds an earth-orbit test flight before a lunar surface return. Calling it a “course correction,” officials said the previous plan was not a path to success. The goal of landing on the Moon in 2028 while President Trump is in office remains and NASA is even preserving the possibility of two landings that year.

NASA is getting ready to launch the Artemis II crew around the Moon, but they will not land. Their Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft just had to return to the Vehicle Assembly Building to fix a problem with the upper stage, but NASA is hopeful they can launch as early as April.

The plan was for the next flight, Artemis III, to land astronauts on the surface of the Moon in 2028 for the first time since 1972. No other test flights were planned in-between and it meant a roughly three-year gap between the two missions, similar to the three-year interval between the Artemis I uncrewed test flight in late 2022 and Artemis II.

That launch cadence isn’t sufficient to maintain the skills and “muscle memory” for SLS teams, Isaacman said, and sending astronauts on a lunar landing mission before testing how the Orion spacecraft interfaces with the Human Landing System (HLS) needed to take crews to and from the surface adds risk.

The revised plan makes Artemis III an earth-orbiting mission, not a lunar mission. Launching next year, the yet-to-be-named Artemis III crew will rendezvous with one or both of the HLS systems under development. NASA contracted with SpaceX in 2021 to build the Starship HLS for Artemis III, but it is well behind schedule. In-space cryogenic refueling is needed for Starship HLS to go to the Moon, but not for operations in earth orbit so this will provide an opportunity for Orion and Starship HLS to practice integrated operations without the need for SpaceX to demonstrate cryogenic propellant transfer. Blue Origin has a second NASA contract, awarded two years after SpaceX’s, for the Blue Moon MK2 HLS. That also requires in-space cryogenic refueling and could also be tested next year if it’s ready. The crew may also test the lunar spacesuits under development by Axiom Space.

Isaacman wants to increase the SLS launch cadence to every 10 months, so the next flights, Artemis IV and Artemis V, would be in early 2028 and late 2028. Those would be lunar landing missions.

He also wants a single, standardized version of SLS, eliminating plans to upgrade it to more capable versions called Block 1B and Block 2 that NASA was directed to build in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act. The transition to Block 1B was expected to take place with Artemis IV using a more capable Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) replacing the existing Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) developed for the first three missions. Isaacman declined to identify what upper stage will replace ICPS now, saying only that he has “confidence in our ability to source and integrate a more standardized upper stage to fulfill missions beyond Artemis III.”

Isaacman and the other NASA officials at the news conference, Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya, and Acting Associate Administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD) Lori Glaze, declined to get into details about discussions they’ve had with other stakeholders about this new plan, but Isaacman said the concept is not a surprise inside the agency or to industry partners. “We’ve been discussing with industry this strategy for several weeks now. Everyone acknowledges it’s the right path forward.”

Indeed, HLS providers Blue Origin and Space X, United Launch Alliance, which builds the ICPS and has a larger Centaur V upper stage it uses for Vulcan, Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin, and SLS prime contractor Boeing, all expressed support on X.

A recurring theme was that this idea has been percolating inside NASA for quite some time, but only now are they in a position to implement it because of Trump’s December Executive Order on Assuring American Space Superiority and the money added by Congress in the One, Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) last summer. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) added $4.1 billion for SLS in that bill for the Artemis IV and Artemis V rockets. Those would be the two used in 2028 under the new plan.

Kshatriya called the plan a “course correction” that puts the program on “a more stable foundation, more realistic path.”  Glaze thanked Isaacman for taking “this incredibly bold step.”

Reaction from Congress so far is positive.  Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), chair of the Senate Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee that funds NASA, posted on X that the decision is “critical to making certain the U.S. maintains its leadership in the new era of space exploration.”  Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Montana) posted that “bold, transformational leadership will be needed to win this second Moon race. Let’s get it done.” Sen. Katie Britt (R-Alabama), cheered that it is “great news for Alabama and the nation.” Alabama is home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, which manages the SLS program, as well as rocket and/or engine production facilities for Boeing, United Launch Alliance, and Blue Origin.

In separate statements to SpacePolicyOnline.com, Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-California) also expressed support, albeit with some qualifications. They are the Chair and Ranking Member, respectively, of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee that oversees NASA.

“I support NASA’s goal of increasing the Artemis launch cadence. Congress directed a higher flight rate in both the CHIPS and Science Act and the bipartisan Reauthorization Act we passed out of Committee earlier this month. I appreciate Administrator Isaacman’s urgency in returning American astronauts to the Moon. That said, I have questions about how NASA will remain compliant with long-standing requirements to reduce complexity, strengthen mission assurance, and address recurring findings from the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel and prior blue-ribbon commission findings. I look forward to learning more about what NASA is proposing and hearing from the Administrator at this year’s NASA Budget Request Hearing.” — Rep. Brian Babin

“I am pleased to learn that the Administrator and NASA are taking thoughtful steps to buy down risk in the Artemis campaign, especially in advance of a human landing on the surface of the Moon, something the United States has not done in over 50 years.  NASA’s decision to increase the flight rate of the Space Launch System, achieve a regular and more frequent launch cadence, and to test out human handing system capabilities in low Earth orbit prior to a crewed Moon landing is in line with the NASA Authorization in the CHIPS and Science Act and appears consistent with the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel’s advice.  I look forward to examining NASA’s revised Artemis plans and test sequence once further details are provided to the Committee.” — Rep. Zoe Lofgren

Trump initiated the Artemis program during his first term. In March 2019, then-Vice President Mike Pence as chair of the White House National Space Council announced that astronauts would land at the South Pole of the Moon in 2024, only five years away.

NASA developed a plan to accomplish that with just three launches — a test flight without a crew (Artemis I), a test flight around the Moon with a crew (Artemis II), and the lunar landing (Artemis III). They would be followed by flights about once a year as part of a long-term plan for sustainable lunar exploration and utilization with commercial and international partners.

NASA and its contractors were already building SLS and Orion in conformance with the 2010 NASA Authorization Act. NASA decided to acquire lunar spacesuits and landing systems to get astronauts from lunar orbit, where Orion would take them, down to and back from the surface, through Public-Private Partnerships. A small space station in lunar orbit, Gateway, built with international partners, would be a transfer point between Orion and the landers.

Few thought 2024 was achievable and, indeed, the date has slipped year by year.

George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute Director Scott Pace, who was Executive Secretary of the National Space Council under Pence, told SpacePolicyOnline.com today that he’s enthusiastic about the new plan.

“I’m an enthusiastic supporter of these changes, which are both necessary and realistic. The Administrator is rightly focused on key strategic issues, such as flight rate. A challenge for the agency will be orchestrating mission success across multiple time horizons, e.g., the safe and successful conduct of Artemis 2, creating high confidence Human Landing Systems, and pivoting to long-term sustainability at the Moon.” — Scott Pace

Wayne Hale, who chaired the NASA Advisory Council’s Human Exploration and Operations Committee for a decade (2014-2024) and was a NASA flight director and Space Shuttle Program Manager before that, similarly supports it.

“The newly announced changes in the Artemis program are right on target.  It has always been troubling that there was not a pre-lunar-landing mission in the plan to check out the lander. Artemis III will be much like what was done on Apollo 9, to wring out systems on the lander and also with the new lunar capable space suits.  This is exactly what needed to happen.

“Additionally, scheduling to achieve an Artemis/SLS launch at least once a year is exactly in line with what the NASA Advisory Council had been recommending for years.  It is imperative to keep a cadence of regular flights to keep the launch preparation teams and the mission control teams in practice.

“The mission objective for the Artemis program is to achieve a lunar infrastructure and a more permanent presence at the moon.  While some may worry that other nations might achieve an Apollo like ‘flags and footprints’ landing before Artemis does, this does not bother me.  The objective must continue to be a long term presence and exploitation of lunar resources.”  — Wayne Hale

The United States is the only country that has landed astronauts on the Moon. During the Apollo program, six crews set foot on the lunar surface between July 1969 and December 1972, winning the “space race” against the Soviet Union.  The Artemis program is often characterized as a space race against China even though the U.S. won the race to the Moon more than five decades ago. Isaacman said today that “competition is good,” but the plan laid out today “is a common sense approach” whether we have a rival or not.

The Apollo program was not trouble-free. The first Apollo crew, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, died during a pre-launch test on January 27, 1967 when a fire erupted in their Apollo command module. A spark from an electrical wire ignited the 100 percent oxygen atmosphere in the module. The hatch was designed to swing inward and they could not open it because of the pressure differential.

In 1970, the Apollo 13 crew survived an explosion in the Apollo capsule’s Service Module while they were enroute to the Moon that seriously damaged the spacecraft and the propulsion system. Mission controllers at Johnson Space Center were able to use the Lunar Module’s descent engine to change the trajectory to swing them around the Moon and back to Earth — a “free-return” trajectory.

The Artemis II crew will similarly use a free-return trajectory so they will automatically come back to Earth even if their Orion propulsion system doesn’t perform as planned.

Congress established the Aerospace Space Advisory Panel (ASAP) after the Apollo 1 fire to monitor safety at NASA. On Wednesday, ASAP released its annual report expressing many of the concerns cited by Isaacman today, but he said they arrived at their conclusions independently.  “It is interesting that a lot of things that we are addressing directly go to the points they raised in their report. I can’t say we actually collaborated on it, because I generally think these were all pretty obvious observations. … In any of my recent conversations with the committee, I said, look, we are completely aligned. I agree with every point that you raised.”

 

This article has been updated.