ORLANDO, Fla. — NASA has altered the schedule for its Artemis lunar program, postponing the first planned astronaut touchdown and instead keeping the Artemis III mission in Earth orbit to practice rendezvous procedures.
Under the revised plan, Artemis III will launch and perform rendezvous exercises with the program’s lunar landing system while remaining near Earth. Crewed lunar surface missions would move to subsequent flights: Artemis IV and Artemis V would carry astronauts to the moon using landers being developed by commercial partners SpaceX and Blue Origin.
The change comes after recurring technical problems with the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. Artemis II, which is intended to carry four astronauts, remains grounded at Kennedy Space Center after engineers found issues with the SLS helium pressurization system and detected a liquid-hydrogen leak. Artemis I, the uncrewed mission that looped around the moon in November 2022, experienced similar troubles prior to launch. This week NASA returned the rocket and the Orion capsule to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs.
“This is just not the right pathway forward,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said, pointing to the more-than-three-year gap between Artemis I and II. “When you are experiencing some of the same issues between launches, you probably got to take a close look at your process for remediation.”
Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya said the adjustment aims to speed up the launch cadence and sharpen focus on reliable execution. Isaacman said he seeks roughly ten months between Artemis launches; by comparison, Apollo missions averaged about five months and some Space Shuttle flights occurred nearly every three months.
To support a faster tempo, NASA plans to standardize the SLS configuration and limit changes to its upper stage beginning in 2028, increase staffing, convert some contractor roles to federal positions, and push SpaceX and Blue Origin to accelerate development of their lunar landers. Officials described the approach as a return to an Apollo-like architecture that separates rendezvous and landing phases. “No one at NASA forgot their history books,” Isaacman said. “They knew how to do this. They’ve had plans like this for a long time now. We’re putting it in action.”
Engineers continue work on the helium pressurization problem. If repairs are successful, NASA could attempt to launch Artemis II as early as April 1, though no official date has been announced.