To achieve the national goal of landing American astronauts on the moon and maintaining America’s primacy in exploration and discovery, NASA announced On February 27, the company increased the frequency of missions under the Artemis program, standardized the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket configuration, and added new missions.

The plan was shared during the meeting. press conference It was held at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and included the latest information on short-term missions. Artemis II.

This update focused on the transportation system to get the crew to the moon. NASA’s latest architecture includes adding a new mission in 2027 to test the system’s capabilities close to Earth before sending astronauts to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years, with the goal of achieving one moon mission a year after that. Standardizing SLS and other systems now will help NASA send astronauts to explore the Moon’s South Pole for the first time in 2028.

Specific details and other architectural updates to accomplish this new approach will be announced in the coming months as the agency continues to focus on the lunar Artemis II mission in April and considers features to support increasing the mission’s pace.

The basics of the first five missions of the Artemis program are:

• Artemis I: NASA successfully completed an unmanned test flight of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft in November 2022. The mission tested a rocket launch for the first time using a new exploration ground system and evaluated the Orion system, which does not include astronauts or critical life support systems planned for the next mission.

• Artemis II: This test flight will be the first to carry a crew aboard the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft. After a successful wet dress rehearsal in February, NASA discovered a problem with the flow of helium to the interim cryogenic propulsion stage and returned the rocket and spacecraft to the vehicle assembly building. repair. Engineers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida are currently stacking up the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft to address the issues that required the rollback, and the team is also working over time to replace things like batteries. Next launch window It will open in April. The crew includes NASA astronauts Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who will undertake a 10-day mission to orbit the moon and return.
• Artemis III: NASA has added a new demonstration mission in low Earth orbit in mid-2027 to test one or both SpaceX and Blue Origin commercial landers. The mission will launch a crew to Orion atop an SLS rocket to test the rendezvous and docking capabilities between Orion and private commercial spacecraft needed to land astronauts on the Moon. This testing may be done with one or both providers.

• Artemis IV: NASA continues to aim for the first Artemis moon landing in early 2028, which has been a landing target date since mid-2025. After liftoff, the crew will transfer from Orion to a commercial lunar module and be transported to the lunar surface. The lander’s readiness will determine which carrier will transport the crew safely to the constellation Orion in lunar orbit before they safely splash down in the Pacific Ocean aboard Orion. SLS rocket standardization work will be carried out for Artemis IV. With this architectural approach, NASA is evaluating alternative options for the rocket’s second stage. The interim cryogenic propulsion stage used for the first three missions will be replaced by a new second stage, which the agency has no plans to use in the future due to delays in the development of the exploration upper stage and Mobile Launcher 2.
• Artemis V: NASA expects to use the standardized configuration of the SLS rocket to launch this lunar mission by late 2028, and then at a rate of about once a year thereafter. This mission also coincides with the time when NASA is expected to begin construction of a lunar base.