NASA administrator Jared Isaacman says the agency is accelerating Artemis timelines, including a docking-focused Artemis III next summer and a first astronaut moon landing with Artemis IV in 2028.
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NASA is moving quickly on plans to return astronauts to the Moon and establish a longer-term presence, with administrator Jared Isaacman saying the agency is aiming to land astronauts again within two years and is adopting an Apollo-era approach to speed up work.
Speaking during a news conference at Kennedy Space Center on Friday, Isaacman said NASA is still on track to launch Artemis III next summer for a docking exercise with lunar landers from Elon Musk’s and Jeff Bezos’ companies. The two-week mission will involve four astronauts who will remain in orbit around Earth, with no trip to the Moon this time.
Isaacman said Artemis IV—NASA’s first astronaut landing on the Moon since Apollo—remains scheduled for 2028. He also said NASA will keep options open as long as possible before choosing between SpaceX and Blue Origin for the Artemis IV lunar lander.
The update came about six months after the successful Artemis II flight around the Moon by four astronauts, NASA’s first lunar trip in more than half a century.
NASA is also working toward a planned moon base near the Moon’s south pole, rather than Apollo’s more equatorial landing sites. Isaacman said the base effort should see its first launch by the end of this year, using a rover and other experiments, and that the Pittsburgh company behind a lunar landing attempt that fizzled in 2024 will try again with a “take two” mission focused on the south polar region.
To support future Moon missions, NASA said additional landers, rovers and orbiters are expected to follow in increasing numbers. NASA officials said this would mean the moon car for the first Artemis moonwalkers should already be in place when astronauts arrive.
Isaacman also said the first moonwalkers will wear a lighter, less complex spacesuit than one still under development by Axiom Space for later excursions. NASA said Axiom will test the new “sortie suits” on the International Space Station next year.
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