The hardware that will fly the astronauts moonward includes two 177-foot-tall (54 meters) twin boosters that are the backbone of the giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket's launch power. Recently, the two boosters that will fly on the Artemis 2 mission had an "America 250" emblem painted on their sides, in honor of the upcoming. 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

What is it?

Artemis 2, scheduled to launch in early 2026, will be the first crewed mission of the program. Over a 10-day journey, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will travel around the moon and return to Earth. Their mission will test Artemis systems, procedures and spacecraft in preparation for future lunar landings.

Artemis 2 relies on two key vehicles: SLS, which is NASA's most powerful rocket to date, and the Orion spacecraft, designed to carry astronauts safely beyond low Earth orbit. Inside NASA's iconic Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, these elements come together through a massive, carefully choreographed preparation effort.

Where is it?

The image was taken from inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at KSC.

Why is it amazing?

For Artemis 2, the "America 250" represents NASA's celebration of the anniversary under the theme "Spirit of Innovation." Just as the U.S. was founded on bold ideas and transformative thinking, Artemis 2 embodies a new era of exploration that looks outward, to the moon, Mars and beyond.

Seeing the emblem on the boosters connects technological progress with national heritage, according to NASA. It serves as a reminder that spaceflight, for all its complexity, is also a cultural project, one that captures imagination, inspires generations and reflects shared aspirations.

Want to learn more?

You can learn more about the Artemis program and upcoming Artemis 2 launch.

On Thursday (Dec. 18), President Donald Trump issued an executive order entitled "Ensuring American Space Superiority." Dominance off Earth is vital to the nation's security and prosperity, according to the document.

"The United States must therefore pursue a space policy that will extend the reach of human discovery, secure the Nation's vital economic and security interests, unleash commercial development and lay the foundation for a new space age," the executive order states. You can find the full text of the order here.

The document gets into some specifics about how to make this happen. For example, it calls for the nation to return astronauts to the moon by 2028, and to start construction of a permanent lunar base by 2030 "to ensure a sustained American presence in space and enable the next steps in Mars exploration."

Nuclear power in space is part of this vision. "Ensuring American Space Superiority" lists as a priority the deployment of nuclear reactors in Earth orbit and on the moon, and states that one such facility should be ready to launch toward the lunar surface by 2030.

These goals aren't terribly surprising. For example, NASA is already working toward a 2028 crewed moon landing via its Artemis program, which also aims to set up one or more bases near the lunar south pole over the ensuing years.

The agency has also been developing a potential fission reactor for use on the moon for several years now, with the goal of deploying it in the early 2030s. And a few months ago, we got wind of the more aggressive 2030 timeline for this power source, via a directive from then-NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy.

Duffy no longer leads NASA, by the way: Billionaire entrepreneur and private astronaut Jared Isaacman officially took the reins, in a full rather than acting capacity, on Thursday.

The executive order also stresses the need to strengthen the United States' defensive capabilities in space.

For example, it calls for the development and testing of "prototype next-generation missile defense technologies by 2028 to progressively and materially enhance America's air and missile defenses pursuant to Executive Order 14186 of January 27, 2025 (The Iron Dome for America)." Trump has billed his vision for such a missile defense shield as a Golden Dome for the country.

Growing the space economy is a priority as well. Trump calls for the attraction of "at least $50 billion of additional investment in American space markets by 2028," and he wants to boost the cadence of rocket launches and landings, which are already at an all-time high (thanks in large part to SpaceX's incredible productivity).

The document also reinforces the plan to have one or more private outposts up and running in Earth orbit by the time the International Space Station retires in 2030.

The executive order gets the ball rolling on implementation as well. For instance, it directs NASA to submit within 90 days a plan explaining how it will achieve the "the policy objectives in this order regarding leading the world in space exploration and expanding human reach and American presence in space."

Also within 90 days, Isaacman (along with the Secretary of Commerce) must identify any "acquisition programs" that are 30% behind schedule, 30% over budget, underperforming and/or "unaligned with the priorities in this order, along with a description of their planned mitigation or remediation efforts."

"Ensuring American Space Superiority" also revokes Executive Order 14056, which was issued by then-President Joe Biden on Dec. 1, 2021. Biden's order officially renewed the National Space Council (NSC), which Trump revived from a nearly quarter-century hiatus in 2017, during his first term as president. The new order may spell the end for the NSC, which is chaired by the vice president and helps steer the nation's space policy.

The U.S. Senate voted today (Dec. 17) 67-30 to confirm billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman as the new NASA administrator, ending more than a year of uncertainty as the space agency has followed marching orders from temporary chiefs

Isaacman, 42, is the billionaire founder of the payment-processing company Shift4. He's also an astronaut and sponsor of Polaris, a privately funded spaceflight program chartering SpaceX launches to orbit. Two of those missions have launched to date with Isaacman in the commander's seat, Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn, which made history as the first private astronaut mission to Earth orbit and the first flight to feature a civilian spacewalk, respectively.

Though some members of Congress have expressed concerns about Isaacman's relationship with SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, citing the potential for bias or favoritism, Isaacman's nomination has been favorably received by much of the space community.

Or nominations, rather, for there have been two of them. Donald Trump first tapped Isaacman for the top NASA job in December 2024, when he was still president-elect. Isaacman sat for a hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation in April, which advanced his nomination to the full Senate, but lawmakers didn't get the chance to vote. Trump abruptly withdrew Isaacman's nomination in late May, halting the confirmation process and leaving NASA with an indefinite acting administrator.

At the time, that position was held by Kennedy Space Center Director Janet Petro. In July, however, with no prospects for a new NASA administrator nomination on the horizon, Trump handed the role to Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who has remained in the acting administrator position ever since.

Trump's reversal on Isaacman came amidst a public falling out between the president and Musk, with Trump posting on his social media site Truth Social that he hadn't realized Isaacman was "a blue-blooded Democrat, who had never contributed to a Republican before."

Isaacman came back into the spotlight again in early November, when a Politico report exposed a 62-page document, known as "Project Athena," that outlines Isaacman's vision for NASA. After it was made public, Isaacman called the document a tentative list of "ideas, thoughts on the direction of the agency" and how it might operate in a leaner, more efficient way. Trump renominated Isaacman for NASA chief on Nov. 4 (a day after the Politico report published), which paved the way for his official appointment today.

President Trump's fiscal year 2026 budget proposal slashed NASA's budget by nearly 25% and cut the agency's science funding by 47%. When pressed during his two Senate nomination hearings this year, Isaacman voiced support for much of the administration's space agenda, including landing astronauts back on the moon before China does so and sending humans to Mars. Isaacman also indicated his commitment to spend NASA's funds as directed. It's still unclear what that budget will be; Congress aims to restore NASA funding to previous years' levels, though a final appropriations bill has yet to be passed.

"Mr. Isaacman emphasized the importance of developing a pipeline of future scientists, engineers, researchers, astronauts, to support the science and technology development and align with NASA's objectives," Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said before lawmakers began their roll call vote this afternoon, in a statement that announced her support for his confirmation. "I look forward to working with administrator Isaacman on the future STEM talent with both NASA and more broadly, with the aerospace and innovation sector."

Jared Isaacman, the billionaire tech entrepreneur and sponsor of SpaceX's private Polaris spaceflight program, faced a key vote on Monday evening (Dec. 8) before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which determined whether or not to send his nomination as NASA chief to the full Senate. And the vote passed.

"Mr. Isaacman, I know that you are as committed to American supremacy in the final frontier as is this committee and the entire Senate," Committee Chairman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in an emailed statement on Monday evening. "My hope is that you will be confirmed and in this role before the end of this year."

The hearing began Monday at 5:30 p.m. ET (2230 GMT). The Senate committee had said the proceedings will be broadcast live, but that turned out not to be the case.

Isaacman has flown to space twice. He privately funded both missions, which launched groundbreaking spaceflights aboard SpaceX Crew Dragons. The first, Inspiration4, was also the first all-civilian launch, while his second, Polaris Dawn, included the first civilian spacewalk.

In his nomination hearing before the committee last week, Isaacman faced questions scrutinizing his relationship with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and probing his position on NASA's science and human spaceflight programs. It was Isaacman's second such hearing before the committee, which had the opportunity to press similar questions to him in April, during his first round through the nomination process.

Despite a positive and mostly bipartisan reception by lawmakers, a vote for Isaacman's confirmation earlier this year was halted when President Trump withdrew his nomination in May. Janet Petro, acting NASA Administrator at the time, later ceded the role to Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy when Trump appointed him to the position in July.

Isaacman quietly stepped aside, but little movement was made over the summer to nominate a new NASA chief as Duffy juggled dual roles at the space agency and DOT. Then, an early November report from Politico exposed a 62-page document, known as "Project Athena," outlining Isaacman's vision to outsource certain aspects of NASA to the commercial sector in order to operate a leaner, more efficient agency. A day after that report published, Trump renominated Isaacman for NASA's acting administrator.

In addition to Isaacman, seven other federal appointments face votes this evening, including John DeLeeuw, of Texas, and Michael Graham, of Virginia, to the National Transportation Safety Board, Steven Haines, of Virginia, as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Analysis, Robert Harvey, of Florida, as Federal Maritime Commissioner, Richard Kloster, of West Virginia, to the Surface Transportation Board, Adm. Kevin E. Lunday as Commandant of the United States Coast Guard and McCormack, of Virginia, as Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 6 p.m. ET on Dec. 8 with the news that the hearing will not be webcast after all, then again at 6:45 p.m. ET with the news that the committee had advanced Isaacman's nomination to the full Senate.

These were just some of the considerations raised when SpaceX billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman once again appeared before a Senate committee Wednesday (Dec. 3) for a bid at NASA chief.

This wasn't Isaacman's first rodeo before the Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation in Washington, D.C. But the eight-month gap between the two nomination hearings in April and December showed just how much has changed in NASA, as the race with China heats up, the effects of the costly 43-day government shutdown persist, and worries about the agency's budget accelerate.

There might be a narrow window of time to confirm Isaacman before even more change arises. NASA's continuing resolution for funding only gives it money until the next deadline for the U.S. budget at the end of January—and if fiscal 2026 is not agreed upon, the government will shut down again.

Here are five key findings from the hearing showing some of the important things to Isaacman, and the committee, as the nomination enters an expected committee vote on Monday (Dec. 8).

1. Déjà vu

Like that black cat in 'The Matrix', Isaacman made a repeat appearance before the Senate committee on Dec. 3. He appeared to sail through the O.G. hearing on April 9, impressing the committee and space fans alike with his testimony: not only was he an advocate for NASA's moon and Mars aims, but his space experience included funding and commanding two SpaceX missions to Earth orbit in September 2021 and September 2024.

But to the space world's surprise, President Donald Trump abruptly revoked his required nomination for Isaacman on May 31, just days before Congress appeared to be ready to confirm Isaacman as administrator. It was said that Trump was not impressed with Isaacman's past donations to the Democrats, and aside from that, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk finished his 130-day appointment as a "special government employee" just the day before. (We didn't know this when Isaacman's nomination was pulled, but Musk and Trump were clearly unhappy with each other as their "very public bromance", as NPR put it, descended into attacks and insults on social media in early June.)

Isaacman said at the time that some folks had "axes to grind" and he was a convenient target. NASA was led in an acting capacity by former reality TV star and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. Then in November came another development: after weeks of rumors, Trump reversed course for a renomination on Nov. 4 amid a reported power struggle for NASA's governance.

Isaacman definitely got questions from lawmakers about what happened; while he said he "wouldn't even begin to want to speculate", it was pointed out that he lately has made donations to organizations close to the U.S. president's ideals. But Isaacman maintained a middle course, emphasizing the donations were because he was interested generally in politics, and adding: "I was grateful for the opportunity in the first place."

2. Is the current Artemis plan feasible?

Isaacman told lawmakers that his testimony was tinged "with a message of urgency" in the final months before the expected liftoff of Artemis 2, a four-astronaut around-the-moon mission with three NASA astronauts and a Canadian astronaut on board. That could fly in February 2026 if schedules hold, marking the first moon mission by any humans since 1972.

Artemis 2 seeks to test out the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for humans ahead of the landmark Artemis 3, which may put boots on the surface later in the decade if a human landing system (HLS) is ready in time. But there's a rub: following years of NASA concerns about SpaceX's progress on the Starship lander, Duffy pledged in October to reopen competition for the Artemis 3 moon-landing contract, which SpaceX won back in 2021.

Isaacman (whose ties to SpaceX were also a feature of the hearing, as discussed below) didn't quite answer if he plans to follow through on Duffy's threat, but he had this to say: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has since won an Artemis astronaut-landing contract as well for HLS, and it is good to have more than one company available for all Artemis landings.

"I think that competition is fantastic. I think the best thing for SpaceX is a Blue Origin right on their heels, and vice versa," Isaacman said. "I have no particular interest in one provider versus another. My interest is in making sure the objective is achieved."

If you're wondering what the rush is to land humans on the moon quickly, it's mainly because of China — which Isaacman also discussed extensively in the hearing. "Artemis is the key, I believe, to both beating China to the lunar surface and to maintaining a U.S. presence at the moon," Isaacman said.

3. Winning the space race against China

Isaacman's opening statement made lots of reference to China, which the Trump administration (and in latter years, the Biden administration) framed as a threat to U.S. security in space. China has been very active beyond Earth in the past decade, with multiple moon missions, a Mars mission, and its growing Tiangong space station that hosts both astronauts and science experiments. Aside from that, there are rumors that China is engaging with U.S. satellites in space critical to infrastructure like communications.

"We are in a great competition with a rival that has the will and means to challenge American exceptionalism across multiple domains, including in the high ground of space," Isaacman said of China. "This is not the time for delay, but for action, because if we fall behind — if we make a mistake — we may never catch up, and the consequences could shift the balance of power here on Earth."

Simply put, China has been framed as a threat on three fronts: concerning satellite security, because it is trying to put astronauts on the moon by 2030 (alongside Russia and and before the U.S. can get there), and because the International Space Station is slated to retire in the early 2030s with no clear path to planned American private stations (creating a possible gap in lucrative private research dollars that Tiangong could use.)

Isaacman said he would "will never accept a gap" that China could fill. His testimony also emphasized that the U.S. has a strong network of companies (dating back to the Soviet Union-U.S. rivalry in the 1960s) that can help out. Many other companies, he noted, are much newer and a few of them could grow quickly to help out against the Chinese situation if given the right support.

"Where NASA can play a role is consistent in the past, which is sharing its expertise and talent to help these new companies. When NASA does tend to figure out the near-impossible, and it's matured enough technology to hand it off to industry, […] innovation can improve upon the capability and lower cost. That's a great outcome," he said.

4. The future of NASA's science programs

On May 30 — one day before Isaacman's first nomination was pulled — the Trump administration revealed its budgetary plan for NASA, to the chagrin of space advocates. While the administration said changes were needed to focus on moon and Mars missions, the measures proposed to meet that goal were drastic.

The proposal slashed NASA funding by nearly 25%, from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion, mainly in science. It said NASA would cancel the Gateway moon-orbiting space station (a keystone of agreements for international partners in the Artemis Accords). It would phase out much of the existing Artemis hardware: SLS and Orion. And NASA's workforce would drop by a third.

Congress extensively debated the budget, and some pieces were put back together (Gateway was brought back in, and the SLS and Orion were funded through Artemis 5, for example.) But other pennies began to drop. Roughly 4,000 NASA employees exited swiftly under a deferred resignation program offered before the budget was finalized. Lab closures at the heart of NASA science, its Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, were said to happen during the height of the government shutdown; although NASA has said it has authorization to proceed, the matter recently attracted Congressional scrutiny.

The NASA budget remains unfinalized, with jobs and as many as 41 active and planned science missions hanging in the balance, as Congress continues negotiations for the greater U.S. 2026 fiscal-year budget. Meanwhile, in November Politico received a leaked, 62-page "Project Athena" plan from Isaacman's team that proposed moving some NASA missions to the private sector, and treating the agency more like a business.

When asked about NASA's science portfolio and Project Athena, Isaacman repeated two themes.

For science, he said a few times that he would be best poised to make budget decisions only after getting a detailed look at the plans for NASA (implying that he also believes they have been shifting quickly); he also said Goddard "is very important to spearheading the scientific efforts of NASA."

At the same time, if made administrator, Isaacman promised to spend his allocated funds per the direction of Congress; officially, the NASA administrator is responsible for "overseeing successful implementation" of the agency's mission with accountability to the U.S. president himself", according to the agency.

As for Athena, Isaacman reiterated what he has said since the document was made public: it was a tentative plan containing "ideas, thoughts on the direction of the agency, research requests" that were supposed to be revised after he learned more about NASA as its chief.

5. The shadow of Elon Musk

Isaacman's relationship with SpaceX — remember, he paid the company undisclosed amounts of money for two missions in space — has been a feature of both nomination hearings, especially in questioning from Senator Ed Markey (D-MA).

In April, Markey repeatedly asked if Musk was there in-person at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Florida estate, when Trump interviewed Isaacman for NASA's top post late last year. Back then, Isaacman declined to answer directly. Markey once again put the question to Isaacman on Wednesday.

"I wanted to give you one more chance to set the record straight. Was Elon Musk in the meeting at Mar-a-Lago when President Trump offered you the job?" Markey asked.

After Isaacman said the interview happened in a "ballroom-type setting" with "dozens of people moving in and out," Markey persisted. "It's a very simple question," Markey said. "Was Elon Musk in the room when President Trump offered you the job?"

"Senator, my interview, my conservations, were with the president," Isaacman answered, then repeated his previous point: "There were dozens of people moving in and out of the room, and I don't think it's fair to bring any of them into this matter."

"So once again, you're refusing to tell us whether Elon Musk was in the room that day, and that actually makes me think that Elon Musk was in the room that day, but that you understand that it's a clear conflict of interest that he was there," Markey said.

Markey also asked how much the billionaire paid for his spaceflights. Isaacman didn't answer that question, apparently because he had a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with SpaceX. But Isaacman also pointed out that he bought the missions from SpaceX because it is the only American company capable of orbital missions from the U.S. If there had been competition, he noted, he might have paid less.

When asked by Markey, Isaacman also said he would have no issue asking SpaceX to release him from the NDA to disclose how much he paid SpaceX. But Isaacman also emphasized that to the best of his knowledge, to date he has been making the required ethical (and conflict-of-interest) disclosures required for his nomination.

Griffin testified alongside other witnesses at a hearing held in Washington D.C. on Thursday (Dec. 4) by the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives. The hearing, titled "Strategic Trajectories Assessing China’s Space Rise and the Risks to U.S. Leadership," was held to discuss the rapid development of China's space program and what that means for America's long-held dominance when it comes to space exploration.

And according to Griffin and the witnesses at the hearing, that dominance might soon cede to China due to policy decisions that continue to plague the Artemis program, NASA's current planned campaign of moon missions. "Sticking to a plan is important when the plan makes sense. China is sticking to a plan that makes sense. It looks a lot, in fact, like what the United States did for Apollo," Griffin said. "We have stuck to a plan that does not make sense."

Griffin said NASA and two consecutive presidential administrations have stuck to an Artemis moon landing architecture that "cannot work" and "poses a level of crew risk that should be considered unacceptable." The former NASA administrator reiterated a previous recommendation he made to Congress, arguing that NASA's Artemis 3 mission, currently planned for 2027, should be canceled  — along with every other Artemis mission  — so NASA and the U.S. government can rethink the whole plan for America's return to the moon.

"We should start over, proceeding with all deliberate speed," Griffin said. "We have lost a lot of time, and we may not be able to return to the moon before the Chinese execute their own first landing. Or we may; space is hard and despite the progress that China is making, mission success is guaranteed to no one. But though we may not win at this first step, we cannot cede the pursuit and leave the playing field to others."

NASA and SpaceX's current plan for Artemis 3 and other moon missions in the program relies on a complicated in-orbit refueling system. The current moon landing architecture requires a high number of SpaceX Starship launches in order to refuel the lander that would take NASA astronauts to the moon. The exact number still isn't even known, though SpaceX estimates it could require 12 Starship launches to fully refuel the lander. The concept also remains unproven; SpaceX intends to test Starship's in-flight refueling system on an upcoming launch.

Furthermore, Griffin added, the length of time the lander would need to remain in orbit while the refueling flights launch and rendezvous with it would "almost guarantee" the propellant loaded into the lunar lander would boil off before the mission proceeds. "I do not see a way with the current technology we have to overcome those problems, and therefore we should not pursue that line of approach," Griffin said.

Even SpaceX appears to doubt the current Artemis moon landing architecture. In internal company documents obtained by Politico, SpaceX estimates that September 2028 is the earliest timeline for a first crewed lunar landing attempt; however, according to publicly available information, NASA is still aiming for 2027 for that mission.

If Artemis 3 is delayed to late 2028, there will have been an average of two years between the first three Artemis program missions. The Apollo program, by comparison, launched each of its 11 missions an average of once every 4.5 months between 1968 and 1972.

NASA's current acting administrator has even criticized SpaceX for being "behind" on its lunar lander and Starship development. In remarks made in October 2025, acting NASA chief Sean Duffy suggested the Trump administration might be looking for other companies to compete to build and launch NASA's next moon lander. "The president and I want to get to the moon in this president's term, so I'm gonna open up the contract," Duffy told CNBC. "I'm gonna let other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin."

But it could be that such programmatic instability is what is holding the United States back from committing to a moon landing program in the long-term, according to Dean Cheng, a China expert at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. Cheng told House representatives during the hearing that the bureaucratic structures of the Chinese government allow the nation to stick to plans over longer timelines than the U.S. government system allows. "China sticks to a plan. It creates a plan that sticks to it for decades," Cheng said. "And the benefit there is programmatic stability, budgetary stability, staff stability."

NASA, meanwhile, has been in a period of turmoil that has seen key science facilities lose capabilities, many flagship science missions put at risk of cancellation due to budget cuts, and thousands of personnel lost due to federal workforce reductions.

But whether or not the United States returns to the moon before China, former NASA chief Griffin said that the real risk is "failing to commit to what winning really means in the long run." Many U.S. government officials have stressed that whichever nation is able to establish a sustained presence on the moon first will have the privilege of establishing norms for how other nations can access and use lunar resources. If China manages to get a foothold on the moon ahead of the United States, it may be able to dictate who uses certain areas of the moon going forward, and how.

"I am confident that China fully understands this," Griffin said.

In April, during Jared Isaacman's first nomination hearing for the post of NASA administrator, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts asked repeatedly if SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk was in the room when President Donald Trump offered him the job of NASA chief. Isaacman declined to answer directly.

On Wednesday (Dec. 3), Isaacman appeared before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for the second time, as Trump has tapped the 42-year-old billionaire again after abruptly pulling his nomination on May 31. And Markey still wants an answer.

"I wanted to give you one more chance to set the record straight. Was Elon Musk in the meeting at Mar-a-Lago when President Trump offered you the job?" Markey asked on Wednesday, referring to Trump's Florida estate, where the then-president-elect interviewed Isaacman late last year.

Isaacman, who founded the payment-processing company Shift4, gave us a few more details this time but still danced around the question.

The interview "was in a ballroom-type setting," he told Markey. "There were dozens of people moving in and out that I would not say were in the meeting."

"It's a very simple question," Markey pressed. "Was Elon Musk in the room when President Trump offered you the job?"

"Senator, my interview, my conservations, were with the president," Isaacman responded. "There were dozens of people moving in and out of the room, and I don't think it's fair to bring any of them into this matter."

"So once again, you're refusing to tell us whether Elon Musk was in the room that day, and that actually makes me think that Elon Musk was in the room that day, but that you understand that it's a clear conflict of interest that he was there," Markey said.

The senator laid out his conflict-of-interest concerns during Isaacman's first nomination hearing on April 9, citing Isaacman's "deep personal and financial ties" to Musk.

Isaacman has long stressed that he has no real personal relationship with Musk, but there certainly are financial ties. Isaacman organized, funded and commanded two pioneering spaceflights to Earth orbit using SpaceX hardware: Inspiration4 in September 2021 and Polaris Dawn, which pulled off the first-ever private spacewalk, three years later.

However, since the retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet in 2011, SpaceX has been the only American organization capable of flying people to and from orbit — a point that Isaacman made on Wednesday, stressing that going with Musk's company was not a sign of favoritism.

During the second hearing, Markey asked Isaacman how much he paid for his two spaceflights. But the billionaire demurred, apparently because of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) he signed with SpaceX.

"So you won't tell what you paid the man who publicly campaigned for your nomination," Markey replied. "Will you request that SpaceX release you from the NDA so that you can provide the committee with this information?"

Isaacman said that he has "no issue" with making that request.

Despite Markey's grilling of Isaacman on Wednesday, the billionaire appears to be on a glide path for confirmation as NASA chief.

Most of the other senators on the committee, including the Democrats, struck a more positive tone in their questions. And Isaacman is broadly popular in the spaceflight community, as evidenced by a letter of support signed by 36 astronauts, which the billionaire cited during Wednesday's hearing.

But you never know. After all, the signs all pointed to Isaacman being confirmed by the Senate in early June, but the rug was pulled out from under him with just a week or so to go.

Isaacman spoke Wednesday (Dec. 3) before the U.S. Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation in Washington, D.C., which was holding its second hearing to consider his nomination as NASA administrator.

Isaacman is a private astronaut who has funded and commanded two SpaceX missions to Earth orbit, and was widely considered to be a shoo-in for administrator after his first hearing before the committee on April 9. But on May 31, President Donald Trump abruptly revoked the nomination, citing concerns with Isaacman's past donations to Democratic political candidates and his ties with SpaceX. (At the time, Isaacman said some people had "axes to grind" and that he was "a good, visible target.")

Fortune changed in Isaacman's favor when Trump renominated him on Nov. 4, in the wake of media reports saying there was a power struggle occurring over NASA's management. (The agency is currently led, in an acting capacity, by former reality TV star and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy.)

Isaacman, who founded the payment-processing company Shift4, struck a cautious tone about the twists and turns in his livestreamed testimony during Wednesday's hearing. "I wouldn't even begin to want to speculate why the president nominated me, withdrew it and renominated me, other than to say I was grateful for the opportunity in the first place," he told the committee.

Isaacman added that he has made donations to both the Republican and Democratic parties and said his only connection with SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk (who also held a temporary, prominent role related to cost-cutting in Trump's administration) has been the two private astronaut missions, which launched in September 2021 and September 2024.

Isaacman declined to divulge exactly how much he paid to fly those missions — he apparently is bound by a non-disclosure agreement with SpaceX — but said that he is complying with all ethical requirements related to his nomination.

'This is not the time for delay, but for action'

In his opening statement, Isaacman told committee members that his remarks come "with a message of urgency" because, in his mind, NASA needs a permanent administrator ahead of the launch of the Artemis 2 astronaut mission around the moon, which is currently set for February 2026.

The Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the moon's surface in 2028 and to set up a long-term sustainable presence on and around Earth's nearest neighbor not long thereafter. NASA is assembling a coalition of industry and international partners to help make this happen. Artemis has become one of the vehicles by which the United States has sought to compete with China, which is co-leading its own space alliance with Russia and seeks to land astronauts on the moon by 2030.

Congressional hearings in recent months have stressed that the U.S. is in a new "space race" with China, but the two political parties have generally disagreed about how to approach that issue. For example, Democrats have criticized Trump's proposed deep cuts to NASA's science budget, which they say would hinder the development of technological advances needed to keep the U.S. in front. But many Republicans argue that streamlining NASA's approach is necessary to focus dollars on expensive crewed moon and Mars missions.

Isaacman's opening statement echoed the need to win the new space race. "We are in a great competition with a rival that has the will and means to challenge American exceptionalism across multiple domains, including in the high ground of space," he said of China. "This is not the time for delay, but for action, because if we fall behind, if we make a mistake, we may never catch up, and the consequences could shift the balance of power here on Earth."

The billionaire lauded the Trump administration's spending on human spaceflight in the administration's "One, Big Beautiful Bill" that passed July 4. As far as science goes, Isaacman's opening statement said his plan is to "make the most efficient use of every dollar allocated" for future programs on the scale of the Hubble Space Telescope or the James Webb Space Telescope. (During the hearing, Isaacman was asked about the proposed 47% cut to NASA's science budget for 2026. "If I'm confirmed, I'd love to get my arms around where we are presently at," the billionaire said.)

In his opening statement, Isaacman also pushed for a deeper relationship with industry, so as to "not rely exclusively on the taxpayer." While arguing that he is "not here for personal gain, to favor or enrich contractors," he cited increased spending on privately developed nuclear propulsion and power, as well as reusable launch vehicles, as key to NASA's moon-to-Mars approach.

And Isaacman promised that NASA "will never accept a gap" in research after the International Space Station's retirement in 2030 and the operation of new, privately owned U.S. space stations. If such a gap does open up, China may rush to fill it with its Tiangong space station, critics have said.

From Athena to Artemis

Much has happened in the nearly eight months since Isaacman's first nomination hearing. Here are some of the other topics that were addressed on Wednesday.

Goddard lab closures: Exclusives from Space.com cited pending lab closures at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and Congress is now scrutinizing the process by which this was said to have happened during the government shutdown. Isaacman told committee members that he is reading the same news reports as others and added, "Goddard is very important to spearheading the scientific efforts of NASA." But, as with the proposed science funding cuts, Isaacman emphasized that he would need time to understand what is going on before making any decisions. He added that he would allocate the budget as directed by Congress. (Budgets proposed by presidents aren't enacted until Congress passes them.)

Artemis 3 landing system: Duffy pledged in October to reopen competition for the Artemis 3 moon-landing contract, which SpaceX won back in 2021. When asked about this idea on Wednesday, Isaacman carefully spoke at the program level, pointing out that Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has since won an Artemis astronaut-landing contract as well. "I think that competition is fantastic. I think the best thing for SpaceX is a Blue Origin right on their heels, and vice versa," he said. "I have no particular interest in one provider versus another. My interest is in making sure the objective is achieved."

Project Athena: A month ago, Politico received a leaked, 62-page plan called "Project Athena" that was penned by Isaacman. It outlines an approach that would move some of NASA's missions to the private sector while operating the agency more like a business. But, as the nonprofit Planetary Society pointed out, Athena was written long before some of the more recent changes at NASA cited above, and Isaacman has always framed it as a proposal. In his testimony on Wednesday, Isaacman reiterated that the document is an interim collection of "ideas, thoughts on the direction of the agency, research requests" that he plans to amend as he receives more data.

Supersonic flights: Isaacman's testimony also included individual discussion on a few NASA programs, including NASA's efforts to develop a "quiet" supersonic jet that could help bring ultrafast passenger flight back to the U.S. That program saw the X-59 make a historic first test flight in October. Isaacman was asked how NASA can help industry to continue innovating for programs like this, without undue regulation. The agency, Isaacman said, is "funded by taxpayers to explore the near impossible in air and space" and would hand off technology to industry "where competition can drive innovation and bring down costs." Isaacman added that he is watching Boom Supersonic, a private company also innovating in supersonic flight, but kept his recommendations more general about the industry-versus-government flex point. "I actually don't think NASA is at its best when it's doing what industry is doing, because at that point, talent would naturally probably gravitate to industry where they get the advantage of, who knows, appreciating stock options and such."

Isaacman's hearing took place alongside that of Steven Haines, who is being considered for nomination as the assistant secretary of commerce for industry and analysis. Committee chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has said he is hoping to open the vote for Isaacman's confirmation on Monday (Dec. 8), putting Isaacman on track to potentially take the reins permanently for NASA before Congress adjourns for the holidays.

Isaacman's chances appear to be quite good. As noted above, he seemed set to be confirmed before Trump withdrew his nomination back in May. And that support seems to have persisted or even strengthened over the past six months. For example, as Isaacman noted in his written testimony for Wednesday's hearing, Duffy has endorsed him, and 36 NASA astronauts have signed a letter backing his nomination.

The consortium will develop the Argonaut Lunar Descent Element (LDE), one of three main components that will make up Argonaut. The first mission for Argonaut is scheduled for launch in 2030 atop a European Ariane 64 rocket, with the European Space Agency (ESA) stating that the lander will play a key role in international lunar exploration through supporting the NASA-led Artemis program.

Thales Alenia Space in Italy, a joint venture between Thales and Leonardo, is leading the consortium. Core partners are Thales Alenia Space in France and Thales Alenia Space in the U.K., as well as OHB System AG and Nammo, the latter of which forms part of the consortium as strategic subcontractor for the propulsion system's main engine.

Argonaut will consist of the LDE, a Cargo Platform Element (CPE), and the lander payload. The assembled Argonaut will have a height of 19.7 feet (6 meters), a diameter of 14.8 feet (4.5 m) and a launch mass of nearly 22,046 pounds (10,000 kg), according to ESA. It can carry roughly 3,300 pounds (1,500 kg) to the lunar surface and is designed to land with an accuracy of at least 820 feet (250 m) for the first flight.

Earlier statements indicate a greater payload capacity of up to 4,600 pounds (2,100 kg) and a more precise landing accuracy of better than 330 feet (100 m) for the operational lander. Argonaut is designed to carry cargo, such as food and water for future astronauts, to anywhere on the lunar surface.

Giampiero Di Paolo, deputy CEO and senior vice president of observation, exploration and navigation at Thales Alenia Space, hailed the creation of the consortium as a milestone. "Under the leadership of the European Space Agency and alongside the consortium partners, Thales Alenia Space is playing a pioneering role to enable European autonomous access to the moon," Di Paolo said in an ESA statement.

"A European presence on the moon is a vision we at OHB have been working toward for many years. We are thrilled to play a pivotal role in this mission by contributing essential subsystems to the Argonaut LDE, helping to further advance Europe's space exploration capabilities," said Chiara Pedersoli, CEO of OHB System AG.

Argonaut's first mission is scheduled for 2030, with a first operational lunar flight slated for 2031. As well as supplies for astronauts, Argonaut is designed to be able to adapt to carry a diverse range of payloads, including rovers, technology demonstration packages, lunar resource utilization facilities or even lunar telescopes or power stations.

The U.S. Senate will hold a hearing to consider billionaire tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman's re-nomination for NASA chief on today (Dec. 3), and you can watch the action live.

The hearing, before the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, begins Wednesday at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT).

It will stream live on the committee's website and on YouTube. Space.com will carry the feed as well, if (as expected) it's made available.

This will be the second such hearing for Jared Isaacman, a private astronaut who has funded and commanded two SpaceX missions to Earth orbit.

The first occurred in April and seemed to go well, setting Isaacman up for confirmation in early June. But on May 31, President Donald Trump abruptly pulled his nomination, citing Isaacman's past donations to Democratic political candidates and concerns about his relationship with SpaceX boss Elon Musk. (That relationship is purely professional and would not affect his activities as NASA chief, according to Isaacman.)

If the Senate confirms Isaacman, the founder of the payment-processing company Shift4, he will take the reins from Sean Duffy, who currently serves as the agency's acting administrator. Duffy is a former reality TV star who is also head of the Department of Transportation.

Isaacman won't be the only person appearing before the committee on Wednesday. The senators will also consider the nomination of Steven Haines to be an Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Analysis.

Germany is ESA's biggest budget contributor. An Airbus factory in Bremen assembles the European Service Module, which provides propulsion, power and atmosphere regeneration for the Orion space capsule designed to house astronauts during Artemis moon trips. Europe also builds components for the Lunar Gateway, a space station intended to orbit the Moon from 2027. Elements of the Lunar Gateway are being built by consortia led by France and Italy, whose nationals will be on subsequent Artemis flights, Aschbacher said at the conference. It is in exchange for these contributions that ESA secured three seats on the moon-bound trips. "An ESA astronaut traveling beyond [low Earth orbit] for the first time will be a huge inspiration and source of pride for their country and for Europe at large," Aschbacher said at the conference.

Germany currently has two experienced astronauts among the ESA astronaut corps — 55-year old Matthias Maurer and 49-year-old Alexander Gerst. Both have spent months at the International Space Station. Germany also has two astronauts in ESA's reserve team: 36-year-old Amelie Schoenenwald and 40-year-old Nicola Winter. Neither of them, however, has flown to space yet. Gerst and Maurer are therefore the most likely contenders for that coveted Artemis 4 seat.

Gerst's first six-month stint on the ISS took place in 2014, during which he performed a six-hour spacewalk, installing new equipment outside the space station. He returned to the orbital outpost in 2018 when he also served as a commander. With 362 days in space, he is among ESA's most experienced astronauts. His colleague Maurer has completed one mission, having spent 176 days at the space station in 2021. He also performed a space walk during that time.

ESA, a cooperation between 23 European countries, is part of the International Space Station partnership and regularly has its astronauts among the ISS crew. In the 1990s, several European astronauts participated in repair missions to the Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits some 340 miles (540 kilometers) away from Earth, about 90 miles (140 km) farther than the space station. No European, however, has ever ventured deeper into space.

"We can now, for the very first time, send a European astronaut flying 360,000 kilometers away," Dorothee Bär, Germany's Federal Minister of Research, Technology and Space, said at the press conference. "This means that a European astronaut will be traveling for approximately three days until for the first time he sees the Earth as a whole. No European has ever seen that before."

NASA has so far announced the crew for the upcoming Artemis 2 mission, which will return humans to the moon's orbit next year. Three NASA astronauts — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch — will take the journey together with Canadian spaceman Jeremy Hansen. In 2027, the subsequent Artemis 3 mission will attempt to place humans onto the moon's surface for the first time since the end of the Apollo program in 1972. The crew for that mission has not yet been named but it is unlikely to include a European as Aschbacher said earlier that ESA had secured seats on Artemis missions 4 and 5. Artemis 4 is currently planned for the second half of 2028, while Artemis 5 mission is expected to take place in 2030.

While a German astronaut will be the first European to orbit the moon, the first European footprints on the moon's surface will probably belong to a Frenchman or an Italian. France's Thomas Pesquet (47) is likely one of the front-runners for that honor. A member of two seven-month missions to the International Space Station in 2016/2017 and in 2021, he has 397 space days under his belt. He performed several space walks during those missions and also briefly served as an ISS commander.

French helicopter pilot Sophie Adenot was selected as an ESA astronaut in 2022 and will be the first of the new astronaut cohort to fly to the ISS for an eight-month mission early next year. That flight will allow her to gain precious experience, which might qualify her for a future Artemis moon trip. (Reserve astronauts Marcus Wandt, of Sweden, and Poland's Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski, flew to the ISS for two-week stints with Axiom paid for by their respective countries in 2024 and 2025 respectively.)

Among the Italians, the most likely contenders for an Artemis seat and a possible place in a lunar lander are 49-year-old Luca Parmitano and 48-year-old Samantha Cristoforetti, both of whom participated in two long-duration missions to the International Space Station. Parmitano performed multiple space walks during his time in space, including one that nearly killed him when his helmet filled with water because of a clogged filter.

Artemis 6 is foreseen to launch no earlier than 2031. Beyond that, the fate of the Artemis program is uncertain as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump intends to discontinue the Space Launch System and Orion programs — the rocket and capsule used to conduct the Artemis missions — and replace them with commercially built spaceships. ESA has agreements with NASA in place to produce Orion Service Modules for six Artemis missions.

"Beyond European Service Module number six, we want to keep the options open," Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA's Director for Human and Robotic Exploration told Space.com. "It's possible that the U.S partner will come to us and look for the continuation of the Orion — European Service Module couple."

Europe is also working on a lunar lander for cargo delivery called Argonaut, so hopes to have something up its sleeve to pay for possible future moon trips.

Now with the upcoming Artemis missions to the moon, astronauts are training in a new type of suit: the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or AxEMU, designed by Axiom Space to support the first human moonwalks in more than 50 years.

What is it?

The AxEMU represents an upgrade from the Apollo-era suits and even the current ISS units. It’s built to offer greater mobility, improved fit across a wider range of body sizes, upgraded life-support systems, and better tools for scientific operations on the lunar surface.

Because Artemis astronauts will need to traverse uneven terrain, collect rock samples, and work for extended periods in harsh lighting and temperature extremes, training with the AxEMU long before launch is essential. At the NBL, astronauts wear weighted mockups of the suit underwater, allowing engineers and astronauts to evaluate maneuverability, dexterity, visibility, and overall performance.

Where is it?

This image was taken at the NBL at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Why is it amazing?

In September 2025, NASA completed the first dual-suit run with the AxEMU. During the test, NASA astronauts Loral O'Hara and Stan Love donned two fully integrated AxEMU units simultaneously, the first time the suits had been used together in a realistic operational scenario. The dual run allowed teams to assess how astronauts coordinate tasks while suited, how the life-support systems perform in tandem, and how the NBL environment supports full-scale Artemis training.

O'Hara and Love carried out simulated lunar activities, including collecting rocks, navigating obstacles, and working side by side as they would on the moon. The test also demonstrated that the facility, support systems, and training procedures are ready for the next phase of Artemis preparation.

Want to learn more?

You can learn more about NASA's Artemis program and other moon missions.

What is it?

Artemis 2 represents the first time humans will travel to the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. While it will not involve a lunar landing, Artemis 2 is critical for validating the performance of the SLS rocket, Orion spacecraft, life-support systems, and deep-space operational procedures with astronauts onboard. The spacecraft will carry NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on what will be the first crewed mission of the Artemis program.

The mission will follow a hybrid free-return trajectory, allowing Orion to loop around the moon and head back toward Earth using gravitational forces, an important safety feature for early crewed missions. Throughout the roughly 10-day journey, the crew will conduct evaluations of life-support performance, spacecraft maneuvering, communication systems and other mission-critical functions needed for future lunar landings.

Where is it?

This image was taken at High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Why is it amazing?

During Artemis 2, Orion will serve as both transport and habitat for the four-person crew. The spacecraft includes advanced guidance and navigation systems, radiation protection features, state-of-the-art avionics and life-support technologies capable of sustaining astronauts through deep-space conditions. Its heat shield—the largest ever built for a human spacecraft — will protect the crew during reentry at nearly 25,000 mph (40,000 kph).

Artemis 2 is a foundational step toward establishing a sustained human presence on and around the moon. Its success will support future construction of the Gateway lunar orbiting platform, development of lunar surface infrastructure and preparation for eventual crewed missions to Mars, according to NASA.

Want to learn more?

You can learn more about NASA's Artemis program and the Orion spacecraft.

Growing pains for SpaceX's massive Starship rocket over the past year have stunted the timeline for the still-developing launch vehicle and spacecraft, which is contracted to land astronauts on the lunar surface as a part of NASA's Artemis 3 mission. The space agency is targeting 2027 for that launch, but SpaceX's own timeline seems to contradict that, reinforcing concerns previously voiced by NASA officials over Starship's readiness.

According to an internal SpaceX document obtained by Politico, the company is targeting June 2026 for the first orbital refueling demonstration between Starship vehicles, and an uncrewed lunar landing in June 2027. If Starship manages to breeze through those qualification tests and stick to its current timeline, SpaceX estimates the earliest first attempt to complete a crewed mission to the surface of the moon could take place in September 2028. SpaceX has not yet conferred these dates to NASA, according to Politico, but plans to include them as part of an "integrated master schedule" it will provide in December. The company acknowledges their timeline falls outside their original NASA contract, and hopes to determine new contract deadlines in coordination with the space agency, the report says.

Artemis 3's predecessor, Artemis 2, could launch as soon as February 2026 based on current NASA timelines. That mission will launch astronauts around the moon, but doesn't include a lunar landing. Artemis 1 launched an uncrewed mission to lunar orbit in November 2022, so a delay of Artemis 3 to 2028 will set an average cadence longer than two years between Artemis program missions. By comparison, between 1968 and 1972, NASA's Apollo program launched one of its 11 missions about every 4.5 months.

But the internal SpaceX document obtained by Politico shows the company's timeline for Starship no longer aligns with NASA's. Starship entered the test flight phase of its development in 2023 with the first integrated launch of its Ship upper stage with its Super Heavy booster. In its first two years, the vehicle has reached some significant milestones, including the return and recovery of a Super Heavy booster using its launch tower's "Mechazilla" chopstick-like arms to catch the rocket out of mid air.

This year, however, has been a different story. Of Starship's five launches of 2025, the first three were not considered successful. Each resulted in the loss of the Ship upper stage either in space or during reentry. Starship's latter two launches of the year represented complete turn-arounds for the "Block 2" version of the vehicle, and managed to successfully demonstrate some of the spacecraft's critical capabilities.

SpaceX is designing Starship for complete reusability — something never yet accomplished for an orbital launch vehicle. The company has perfected reflight refurbishment with its smaller Falcon 9 rocket booster, and while SpaceX has completed 500 launches and counting of its previously-flown boosters, the rocket's second stage still remains a one-time-use vehicle.

With Starship, SpaceX is aiming for reusability of the entire system. The company has already demonstrated two Super Heavy reflights, and completed successful soft-touchdowns in the ocean with Ship during Starship's Aug. 26 and Oct. 13 test launches. Starship can carry considerably heavier payloads compared to the company's smaller Falcon 9 rocket, and SpaceX hopes to position Starship as humanity's spacecraft to Mars. Company CEO Elon Musk has voiced his hope that Starship will deliver up to 1 million people to the Red Planet in the next 20 years. Before it can do that, however, Starship needs to land NASA astronauts on the moon, and it has several more milestones to reach before the space agency puts its personnel onboard.

While Starship has found some slightly firmer footing on its path to operational qualification, SpaceX still has to prove some of the vehicle's most critical capabilities, including orbital cryogenic fuel transfer between vehicles and an uncrewed lunar landing. To complete its responsibilities for Artemis 3, SpaceX estimates the Starship lunar lander will need up to be refueled in space 12 times to pack away enough propellant to land on the moon and launch back to lunar orbit. Once there, it will rendezvous with NASA's Orion spacecraft, which will ferry Artemis 3 astronauts back to Earth.

So, while terrestrial landing and reusability are crucial for SpaceX's Starship design, they aren't critical for NASA's mission to the moon. Still, the space agency may be at the mercy of SpaceX's design trajectory.

Interest in the moon has been high – just in the past two years there have been 12 attempts to send missions to the moon, nearly half of which private companies undertook. With so much activity, it's important to start thinking about coordination and safety.

To some, this concern may seem premature. About 10 to 20 missions are headed to the moon in the next few years – far short of the thousands of satellites operating in Earth's orbit. And the area around the moon, referred to as cislunar space, is very large. Earth's orbital area is often considered to extend from near Earth out to geostationary orbit, where a spacecraft orbits at a speed that makes it appear stationary from the Earth's surface.

Cislunar space extends from geostationary orbit out to the moon – an area with a volume 2,000 times larger than Earth's orbital area. This size discrepancy seems to suggest crowding around the moon may not be an immediate concern.

However, missions tend to choose from a select set of stable orbits around the moon, so the vastness of cislunar space may be misleading when thinking about whether missions will intersect. Also, most government sensors that track spacecraft aren't capable of consistently detecting and monitoring objects so far away from Earth, partly due to the glare from the moon itself.

That uncertainty, combined with the high cost of lunar missions, makes operators more likely to move their spacecraft to avoid a collision, even when the probability of a collision is quite low.

As an interdisciplinary team combining space policy and astrodynamics expertise, we've been studying how companies and space agencies could manage traffic in lunar orbit without unnecessary maneuvers. Our research, published in March 2025 in the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, shows that due to the popularity of certain orbits and the uncertainties regarding each spacecraft's location, potential collisions become an issue surprisingly quickly.

Our simulations show that with only 50 satellites in lunar orbit, each of those satellites will need to maneuver four times a year on average to avoid a potential crash – a significant cost in terms of fuel as well as potential disruption to mission objectives. Lunar orbit could easily reach that number of satellites within a decade if activity continues to increase.

Maneuvering satellites

Countries' reports on their current operations in lunar orbit seem to support our finding that congestion around the moon is quickly becoming a significant issue. In 2023, the Indian Space Research Organization reported it had maneuvered its Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft three times in four years, even though only six spacecraft orbited the moon in that time.

Better monitoring and coordination between different space agencies could prevent congestion and keep countries from having to regularly move their spacecraft.

Monitoring cislunar space is not just important for safety – it can also help support national security. Multiple countries have weapons that can destroy satellites, and some in the space community are concerned that space weapons could be placed in cislunar space to escape detection. The U.S. Space Force is considering the potential security dimensions of cislunar space.

The U.S. currently has significant gaps in its ability to monitor this region, and Mariel's research suggests that developing this capability – referred to as cislunar space domain awareness – should be a priority for national security. Improved monitoring would help the U.S. military observe activity in cislunar space, gather intelligence and assess potential threats.

Solutions in progress

Several research programs are experimenting in this area. The Air Force Research Laboratory is funding a program called Oracle that is developing multiple systems to improve the U.S. ability to monitor cislunar space.

The first Oracle satellite is expected to launch in 2027. It will be located at a Lagrange point, which is a spot between the Earth and the Moon where the gravitational pull of each object keeps the spacecraft in a stable position. From there, it can detect objects in cislunar space that sensors on Earth cannot see.

Improving monitoring is only one part of the solution. Entities sending missions to the moon, including governments and companies, will need to share the locations of their operational missions and coordinate to avoid predicted collisions.

A NASA program dedicated to tracking and assessing lunar traffic is helping to facilitate this effort. The program compares individual operators' information about their spacecraft's current and future planned location to identify potential close approaches. In the future, this type of coordination could improve safety, when combined with sensor observations from systems like Oracle.

Countries and companies planning missions to the moon could also try to coordinate before they launch their systems, so no missions end up operating too close together.

The Outer Space Treaty, a set of basic principles developed early in the space age, requires that countries avoid harmfully interfering with other countries' activities, but the treaty doesn't outline how to do this.

The United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space formed a team in February 2025 that hopes to address these and other coordination issues on the moon.

With government and commercial missions to the moon increasing, and NASA's next human mission to the Moon planned for early 2026, countries will need to work together to protect everyone’s interest in the moon.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has issued a contract solicitation for new ways to process optical signals that allow for continuous space-based detection and tracking of objects in cislunar space. Cislunar space is a vast region of space influenced by the gravitational forces of both Earth and the moon. Because most tracking systems are designed for keeping tabs on satellites and spacecraft operating from low Earth orbit to geosynchronous orbit (GEO), there is a gap in the United States' ability to detect and track objects much farther away, especially near the moon.

And as commercial, governmental or military activity ramps up in this region, most notably by the U.S. and China, the U.S. government sees a need for improved abilities to keep eyes on what is moving in and out of cislunar space. DARPA's program, known as Track at Big Distances with Track-Before-Detect (TBD2), aims to "improve early warning capabilities for defense and civilian agencies who track potential threats and objects of interest originating from or transiting cislunar space." It's not stated what these potential threats might be, but the solicitation comes at a moment of heightened geopolitical saber-rattling in the race to become the first nation to put boots on the moon in the 21st century.

TBD2 aims to develop software algorithms that can be paired with commercially available optical sensors onboard spacecraft. The signals detected would need to be processed onboard the spacecraft and provide tracking of faint objects up that are over 1,40,000 miles (2 gigameters) away within hours, according to the solicitation.

DARPA's current TBD2 contract solicitation seeks two different payload designs that would combine optical sensors with an onboard computer; one designed for use at Lagrange Point 1, and one that could be placed "beyond GEO/cislunar orbits." The Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 1 is a gravitationally stable location in space 932,000 miles (1.5 million km) from Earth at which the gravitational pulls of Earth and the sun are equal, allowing spacecraft to remain in place with minimal energy expenditure.

There are also Lagrange points between Earth and the moon (Earth-Moon Lagrangians, or EMLs). Placing TBD2 spacecraft at these points, or beyond them, could allow them to monitor what the solicitation calls the "Earth-Moon corridor" and enable the detection and tracking of objects as small as 10-20 centimeters at distances of 125,000 miles to 250,000 miles (200,000-400,000 km), DARPA says.

TBD2 isn't the only U.S. military program attempting to keep better tabs on what's in cislunar space. The U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command (SSC) and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) are testing new propulsion technologies aimed at developing spacecraft that can "provide persistent situational awareness in cislunar space."

The push for better tracking of objects near the moon comes as U.S. space agency leaders and lawmakers continue to push for more urgency in returning American flags and footprints to the lunar surface. Some see American and Chinese efforts to reach the moon as a new space race, one many experts have said the United States is in jeopardy of losing.

"Unless something changes, it is highly unlikely the United States will beat China's projected timeline," former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told the Senate earlier this year.

Lawmakers and industry experts have stressed that whichever nation reaches the moon first in this new race will be able to dictate the rules for accessing and using lunar resources, controlling access to the moon, and setting the tone for international partnerships.

Mike Gold, president of civil and international space at Redwire, told the Senate that "we will see a global realignment that will impact our economy, our tax base, our ability to innovate, and our national security."

China says it will land astronauts on the moon in 2030. NASA is currently aiming to put astronauts back on the moon in mid-2027 with its Artemis 3 mission, but the agency's lunar exploration program has faced setbacks and delays with rocket and lunar lander development.

The module, which is supposed to be shipped to NASA this week, was nearly not needed after the Trump administration revealed plans to discontinue Orion and its rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), after the Artemis 3 mission in 2027. Trump's $18.8 billion NASA budget proposal for 2026, introduced in May, proposed sweeping cuts and changes to the agency's current programs. NASA's lunar exploration program was one of around 40 projects selected for funding reduction. The Trump administration signaled that it sought to replace the NASA-made SLS rocket and the Orion spaceship with commercial alternatives after the completion of Artemis 3. It also wanted to eliminate the Lunar Gateway, a station designed to orbit the moon and serve as a base for sorties to the moon’s surface.

But the mission was salvaged by a last minute addition to the Big, Beautiful Bill, spearheaded by Texas Senator Ted Cruz. The Big Beautiful Bill, passed in July, secured funding for both the Lunar Gateway and further Orion and SLS flights beyond Artemis 3. Although the original version of the bill didn’t address NASA, later versions eventually provided $2.6 billion to build the Lunar Gateway, $41.1 billion for SLS to launch Artemis 4, and 5 and $20 million for a new Orion capsule to be used on Artemis 4 and subsequent launches.

ESA said in a statement that the Artemis 4 Orion service module would begin its journey across the Atlantic Ocean "in a few days" to head to NASA's Kennedy Space Center for further integration. In 2021, ESA paid a consortium of European companies 650 million euros ($791 million) to produce Orion service modules for Artemis missions 4, 5 and 6.

The service module is an expendable part of the Orion space ship that provides propulsion, electricity and atmosphere regeneration during the trip to the moon and back. ESA is building the technology as part of a barter agreement with NASA in exchange for the American agency providing seats on launch vehicles to take European astronauts to the International Space Station.

ESA has previously delivered three Orion service modules to NASA. Only the first of the three has so far made it to space — the one that powered the Artemis 1 uncrewed test mission in December 2022. Artemis 2 is scheduled to deliver the first human crew since the Apollo era to the moon's orbit in April next year. Artemis 3, planned for 2027, is expected to carry the Starship HLS lander to enable a human return to the moon's surface.

Artemis 4 is expected to launch in 2028 with another crew tasked with a lunar landing. The mission will also deliver the Lunar I-Hab, a habitation module for the planned Gateway station, into the moon's orbit.

"[The European Service Module 4] will play a key role as the Artemis 4 mission is due to deliver the International Habitation Module (Lunar I-Hab) of the Lunar Gateway space station," Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA's Director of Human and Robotic Exploration, said in the statement. "This state-of-the-art hardware, developed by Airbus Defence and Space and its subcontractors across Europe, demonstrates our ability to contribute to major international partnerships."

The Trump 2026 NASA budget, widely criticized and described as the smallest NASA budget since 1961, introduces wide-ranging cuts and cancellations of space and Earth science missions. Additional ESA projects carried out in collaboration with NASA are on the line including the Venus explorer Envision and the gravitational wave space detector LISA.

The Trump budget, however, is facing opposition in Congress, which is rumored to be working on a competing proposal that might restore most of the funding. On the other hand, insider reports have indicated that NASA leadership is aggressively pushing for reforms, job cuts and project cancellations to implement Trump's vision even ahead of a formal budget approval.

President Donald Trump just tapped the billionaire tech entrepreneur to lead the U.S. space agency, five months after pulling his nomination for the same post.

"Jared's passion for Space, astronaut experience, and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and unlocking the new Space economy, make him ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new Era," Trump wrote Tuesday (Nov. 4) in a post on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns.

That astronaut experience is extensive. Jared Isaacman, who founded the payments company Shift4, has organized, funded and commanded two private astronaut missions to Earth orbit, both of them using SpaceX hardware. On the second of those flights, called Polaris Dawn, he conducted the first-ever private spacewalk.

This will be Isaacman's second trip down nomination lane. Trump put him up for NASA chief this past January, and Isaacman looked set to be confirmed by Congress — until the president abruptly pulled his nomination on May 31, citing Isaacman's past donations to Democratic political candidates and supposedly close relationship with SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk.

Isaacman apparently isn't holding a grudge; he said he's ready to go through the process all over again.

"Thank you, Mr. President @POTUS, for this opportunity. It will be an honor to serve my country under your leadership," Isaacman said in a post on X, the social media platform that Musk owns, on Tuesday evening.

"The support from the space-loving community has been overwhelming. I am not sure how I earned the trust of so many, but I will do everything I can to live up to those expectations," he added.

NASA is currently led, in an acting capacity, by Sean Duffy, the former timber-sports champion and reality TV star who also serves as the Secretary of Transportation.

Duffy had been angling to hold on to the NASA job, according to media reports. But he struck a conciliatory and congratulatory tone in his own X post on Tuesday.

"Thank you @realDonaldTrump for the honor to lead @NASA. We’ve made giant leaps in our mission to return to the moon before China. It’s critical for our national security and national pride that we win the next space race. Congratulations to @rookisaacman. I wish him all the success and will ensure the transition is seamless," Duffy wrote.

Isaacman seems to enjoy widespread support from the space community, but his ascension to NASA chief is not a fait accompli — he still has to go through the confirmation process, which didn't end well last time. That confirmation process will likely be on hold due to the ongoing government shutdown, which has been underway since Oct. 1.

Latvia will become the latest country to join the Artemis Accords, the country announced at the end of October. The European nation was the fourth commit during that month, doubling the number of countries that had previously signed the accords in 2025.

Also adding their name to the accords in October were the Philippines, Malaysia and Hungary. They were preceded by Senegal, Norway, Bangladesh and Finland, who signed earlier this year.

"Latvia’s accession to the Artemis Accords is a significant step towards our more active participation in the global space community," Latvian officials said in an Oct. 31 statement on a government-affiliated website. "We are proud to become part of a group of nations committed to exploring and using space responsibly and sustainably."

October also marks five years of the Artemis Accords, which NASA, the U.S. State Department and seven other founding nations established in 2020 as a set of international principles to designed to guide how countries explore the moon and deep space. They parallel concepts from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which aimed to promote peaceful cooperation in space.

Despite their name, the accords aren't directly associated with NASA's current push to return astronauts to the moon with the Artemis program. The agency is gearing up for the launch of Artemis 2 as early as February 2026, which will be the first mission to fly astronauts to the moon since 1972.

Artemis 3, currently targeted for 2027 or 2028, will be the program's first mission to land astronauts on the lunar surface, and will be followed, NASA hopes, by a series of missions to establish a permanent human presence on the moon.

NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy announced the addition of Hungary to the accords via social media on Oct. 22 and did the same with the Philippines and Malaysia today (Nov. 3).

Latvia's announcement indicates that the country "plans" to join the accords, according to the English translation of the release, but its official inclusion may have been delayed with the U.S. government shutdown still underway. NASA officials have indicated that a formal signing ceremony will likely take place once the government reopens.

The company holds a contract to put NASA astronauts down near the lunar south pole on the Artemis 3 mission, which is expected to launch in 2028, if all goes according to plan. SpaceX will use a modified upper stage of its Starship megarocket — the biggest and most powerful launcher ever built — for this very high-profile job.

Or will it? Last week, NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy said the agency will reopen the Artemis 3 landing contract to competition, citing concerns with the pace of Starship's development. The rocket has flown 11 uncrewed test flights to date, the last two of them completely successful, but has yet to reach Earth orbit or demonstrate key moon-critical milestones such as in-space propellant transfer. (Each Starship vehicle will need to be refueled multiple times in Earth orbit before it can reach the moon.)

"I love SpaceX; it's an amazing company. The problem is, they're behind. They've pushed their timelines out, and we're in a race against China," Duffy said on Oct. 20 during an appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box." (China plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2030 and has been making steady progress toward this goal.)

This announcement did not sit well with SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk. He attacked Duffy via social media repeatedly over the following few days, calling the acting NASA chief "Sean Dummy" and claiming that he "is trying to kill NASA."

Now, more than a week later, SpaceX has formulated a more substantive response. On Thursday (Oct. 30), the company posted an update called "To the Moon and Beyond," which summarizes the progress that SpaceX has made with Starship to date and lays out the vehicle's potential to make NASA's lunar ambitions a reality.

"Starship provides unmatched capability to explore the moon, thanks to its large size and ability to refill propellant in space," the blog post reads. "One single Starship has a pressurized habitable volume of more than 600 cubic meters, which is roughly two-thirds the pressurized volume of the entire International Space Station, and is complete with a cabin that can be scaled for large numbers of explorers and dual airlocks for surface exploration."

SpaceX stressed in the update that it's working in parallel along two Starship paths, developing the "core" megarocket (which will help humanity colonize Mars, among other tasks) as well as the Artemis-specific moon-lander upper stage. SpaceX is self-funding the core path, and its contract for the Artemis lander is of the fixed-price variety, "ensuring that the company is only paid after the successful completion of progress milestones, and American taxpayers are not on the hook for increased SpaceX costs," the company wrote.

According to Thursday's update, SpaceX has already completed 49 such milestones for the Artemis lander, including testing of micrometeoroid and space debris shielding and demonstrations of "lunar environmental control and life support and thermal control" systems. And the company plans to make even more progress soon, sending a Starship upper stage to Earth orbit and completing an in-space fueling test with the vehicle in 2026, if all goes to plan.

SpaceX affirmed in the blog post that it shares NASA's goal to return astronauts to the moon "as expeditiously as possible" and wants to be "a core enabler" of the Artemis program's overriding ambition — to establish a permanent and sustained human presence on the moon, rather than mount a flags-and-footprints retread of Apollo. And the company said it's willing to be flexible to help make all of this happen.

"Since the contract was awarded, we have been consistently responsive to NASA as requirements for Artemis 3 have changed and have shared ideas on how to simplify the mission to align with national priorities," reads the update, which also features a new render of the interior of a crewed Starship moon lander. "In response to the latest calls, we’ve shared and are formally assessing a simplified mission architecture and concept of operations that we believe will result in a faster return to the moon while simultaneously improving crew safety."

The current Artemis 3 plan calls for its four astronauts to lift off atop a NASA Space Launch System rocket, then ride an Orion capsule to lunar orbit, where they'll meet up with the Starship upper stage. The astronauts will move into Starship, which will take them to and from the lunar surface.

SpaceX's new blog post doesn't provide any details about the possible "simplified" Artemis 3 architecture. But Musk may have given us a clue on Oct. 20, in one of his many Duffy reaction posts. "SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry," the billionaire wrote. "Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole moon mission. Mark my words."

The SpaceX founder and CEO has hammered Duffy repeatedly on social media over the past few days, calling him "Sean Dummy" (which he later amended to "Sean 'Dangerously Stupid' Dummy") and claiming that Duffy "is trying to kill NASA."

Musk also posted the following poll question on X: "Should someone whose biggest claim to fame is climbing trees be running America's space program?" That's a nod to Duffy's lumberjack past; he was active in timber sports in his youth and held two world speed-climbing titles by the age of 30.

This barrage didn't come out of left field. It followed on the heels of Duffy's announcement that NASA will reopen competition for the Artemis 3 moon-landing contract, which SpaceX won in April 2021. The company plans to use a modified upper stage of its Starship megarocket for that mission, which will put astronauts down on the lunar surface for the first time since 1972. The current plan calls for Artemis 3 astronauts to launch atop a NASA Space Launch System rocket, then ride an Orion capsule to lunar orbit, where they'll meet up with Starship for the trip down.

Duffy, however, voiced concerns that Starship may not be ready on NASA's desired Artemis 3 timeline, which now features a 2028 launch target.

"I love SpaceX; it's an amazing company. The problem is, they're behind. They've pushed their timelines out, and we're in a race against China," Duffy said on Monday (Oct. 20) during an appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

"The president and I want to get to the moon in this president's term, so I'm gonna open up the contract," he added. "I'm gonna let other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin."

Musk did not seem happy about that. He responded by noting that Blue Origin has never delivered a "useful payload" to Earth orbit — something SpaceX has done hundreds of times — and then made a prediction: "SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry. Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole moon mission. Mark my words."

Musk also responded in another, less substantive way, posting a meme on X asking Duffy why he is "gae."

Musk's beef with Duffy appears to extend beyond the Artemis 3 contract issue, however. The SpaceX chief has long backed fellow billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman for NASA administrator — a post Isaacman was poised to secure until President Trump abruptly withdrew his nomination on May 31.

Trump himself nominated Isaacman but had a change of heart very late in the game, citing the tech entrepreneur's past donations to Democratic politicians and alleged close relationship with Musk. That decision resulted in Duffy taking the agency over in an acting capacity.

In a twist, Isaacman now appears to be back in the mix as a candidate for the top NASA job. But Duffy is keen to hold onto the position, according to both The Wall Street Journal and Ars Technica.

Both outlets also reported that Duffy may seek to fold NASA into the Department of Transportation, an agency also led by the former lumberjack and reality TV star. (Duffy was on the sixth season of MTV's "The Real World," which aired in 1997.)

Musk thinks this is a bad idea: He replied with the "100" emoji to a post by AstroForge CEO and founder Matt Gialich that reads, "No one wants this to happen. This would mark the beginning of the end for our nation's dominance in space."

And, in a post this morning (Oct. 22), Musk took the fight directly to Duffy yet again: "Having a NASA Administrator who knows literally ZERO about rockets & spacecraft undermines the American space program and endangers our astronauts."

The obvious but unsaid point of comparison is Isaacman, who funded, organized and commanded two private missions to Earth orbit, using SpaceX rockets and capsules. (Musk did distance himself from this comparison in another X post today, however, saying, "At this point, I am not advocating any particular candidate for NASA Administrator. I am just desperate for someone with a 3 digit IQ.")

Will Trump re-up Isaacman's nomination? Will Duffy get to take the "acting" modifier off his NASA job title? And how will Musk respond to any of these eventualities? Stay tuned; there could be much more drama ahead.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 3:28 p.m. ET on Oct. 22 to include a new X post from Musk, which reads, in part, "I am just desperate for someone with a 3 digit IQ."

The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket being stacked for the Artemis 2 mission has its final piece. Integrity, the Orion spacecraft that will fly NASA's Artemis 2 crew around the moon as early as February 2026, was recently transported across NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and hoisted atop SLS, completing the rocket's assembly ahead of launch.

It's a major milestone for the mission, which has been marked a priority and exempt from NASA's widespread shuttering during the ongoing government shutdown. Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy announced the milestone in a social media post on Monday (Oct. 20), saying, "We are one step closer to mission complete!"

Artemis 2 is NASA's second mission in the Artemis program, which aims to establish a permanent human presence on the moon, and eventually lay the foundation for astronaut trips to Mars. It will be the first crewed mission of the program, and will fly four NASA astronauts on a loop around the moon and back — the first crewed lunar mission since the Apollo program ended in 1972.

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will fly Integrity on a free-return trajectory, circling once around the lunar far side before heading back to Earth.

Their 10-day mission is currently targeted for as early as Feb. 5, 2026, with launch windows available through the end of April. Its predecessor, Artemis 1, launched in November 2022, and carried several sensors but no life support systems or astronauts. Artemis 2 will be the first crewed test of Orion and will pave the way for Artemis 3, which will land a crew on the moon's surface in 2027 or 2028.

Delays have been a familiar occurrence for the Artemis program, however. Issues with Orion's heat shield during reentry through Earth's atmosphere at the end of Artemis 1 created a more than three year gap between Artemis's first and second launches. Now, as the program is beginning to pick up some momentum, concerns about the readiness of SpaceX's Starship, which is contracted as the Artemis 3 lunar lander, are pushing a lunar landing even further.

NASA was targeting mid-2027 for Artemis 3, though that date appears to be slipping, despite Artemis 2 remaining on track for a launch in early 2026. In an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Monday, Duffy suggested that Artemis 3 will likely launch sometime in 2028, and the space agency is considering other landing options.

In April 2021, NASA awarded Elon Musk's company a $2.9 billion contract to provide the first crewed lunar lander for the agency's Artemis program. That vehicle, a modified upper stage of SpaceX's Starship megarocket, is supposed to land astronauts on the moon for the first time on the upcoming Artemis 3 mission.

But NASA isn't satisfied with the pace of Starship's development and is therefore shaking things up, acting agency chief Sean Duffy announced on Monday (Oct. 20).

"I love SpaceX; it's an amazing company. The problem is, they're behind. They've pushed their timelines out, and we're in a race against China," Duffy said on Monday morning, during an appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

"The president and I want to get to the moon in this president's term, so I'm gonna open up the contract," he added. "I'm gonna let other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin."

Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, won an Artemis Human Landing System contract of its own in 2023, an award worth $3.4 billion. The company plans to fulfill that deal with its Blue Moon lander, which was originally expected to make its crewed lunar debut on the Artemis 5 mission.

Musk voiced skepticism that Blue Origin could speed up its timeline enough to be ready for a crewed moon mission before SpaceX.

"Blue Origin has never delivered a payload to orbit, let alone the moon," the world's richest person said via X on Monday, qualifying that to "useful payload" in a follow-up post. (Blue Origin's huge New Glenn rocket carried a prototype of the company's Blue Ring spacecraft to Earth orbit on its first — and so far, only — launch this past January.)

Artemis 3's timeline has shifted to the right several times over the past few years, and not just because Starship is still in the testing phase; issues with spacesuits, NASA's Orion capsule and other tech have also played a role. (Orion will carry Artemis astronauts to lunar orbit, where they'll meet up with the lander that will deliver them to the surface.)

The launch date was originally targeted for late 2024 but was pushed back to 2025, September 2026 and then mid-2027.

And NASA is now apparently eyeing an even later timeline: In Monday's "Squawk Box" interview, Duffy suggests that 2028 is the target for Artemis 3.

The Artemis program has one launch under its belt — that of Artemis 1, which successfully sent an uncrewed Orion to and from lunar orbit in late 2022.

NASA is now gearing up for Artemis 2, which will launch four people on a 10-day journey around the moon next year. That mission remains on track to launch as early as February, Duffy said on Monday.

SpaceX's Starship, meanwhile, has launched on 11 suborbital test flights to date. The most recent two liftoffs, which took place on Aug. 26 and Oct. 13, respectively, were fully successful.

As Duffy noted, China has moon plans of its own: The nation plans to land astronauts on Earth's nearest neighbor by 2030 and is making serious progress toward achieving that goal. No humans have touched the lunar surface since NASA's Apollo 17 astronauts did so in December 1972.

That's two in a row for Starship.

SpaceX's Starship , the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, aced a suborbital test flight today (Oct. 13), following up on a similar success in late August.

Today's mission, which lifted off from SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas, was the 11th overall test flight for the Starship program. It was also the final launch of the current version of the giant vehicle, which will soon be replaced by an even larger variant. And this swan song was a memorable one.

"Let 'em hear it, Starbase!" SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said during the company's launch webcast today, as employees at the site cheered the test flight's successful conclusion. "What a day!"

A rocket for the moon and Mars

SpaceX is developing Starship to help humanity settle Mars, a long-held dream of company founder and CEO Elon Musk. Indeed, Musk, the world's richest man, has said he established SpaceX back in 2002 primarily to help our species set up shop on the Red Planet.

The moon is also in Starship's sights: NASA chose the vehicle to be the first crewed lander for its Artemis program, which aims to put boots on the moon for the first time since the Apollo era. If all goes to plan, Starship will land astronauts near the lunar south pole for the first time on the Artemis 3 mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2027.

Musk was on hand Monday evening to watch the Starship Flight 11 launch in person. But not from launch control.

"This is really the first time I'm going to be outside and watching the rocket," Musk said during a brief cameo on SpaceX's launch livestream. "It's going to be much more visceral."

Starship's secret sauce is its envisioned ability to loft incredibly large payloads with mind-boggling frequency. The vehicle is capable of carrying 165 tons (150 metric tons) to the final frontier, and both of its stages — the Super Heavy booster and an upper stage known as Starship, or Ship for short — are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable.

SpaceX plans to bring both Super Heavy and Ship back to the pad after each flight, catching them with the launch tower's "chopstick" arms. This strategy — which SpaceX has demonstrated three times to date with Super Heavy, though not yet with Ship — will allow superfast inspection and reflight, potentially allowing Starship to launch multiple times per day from a single site, according to Musk.

Today's launch, by coincidence, occurred on the one-year anniversary of SpaceX's first historic catch of a Super Heavy booster, on the Starship Flight 5 test flight.

The current iteration of the vehicle, known as Version 2, stands about 403 feet (123 meters) tall fully stacked. But future variants will be even bigger: Version 3 will be roughly 408 feet (124.4 m) tall, and a "Future Starship" that Musk teased in a May 2025 presentation will tower a whopping 466 feet (142 m) above the ground.

"Future Starship" is likely Version 4, which Musk later said is expected to debut in 2027. V4 will have a total of 42 Raptor engines — three more than the V2 and V3 variants. (The extra three will go on Ship, giving the upper stage nine engines.)

Test flight setbacks — and a bounceback

These are quite ambitious plans, and this summer they seemed even more so. On three straight test launches — Flight 7 in January, Flight 8 in March and Flight 9 in May — SpaceX lost Ship prematurely.

On Flights 7 and 8, the upper stage exploded less than 10 minutes after liftoff, sending debris raining down on parts of the Caribbean. On Flight 9, Ship broke apart upon reentry to Earth's atmosphere.

SpaceX lost another Ship in June, this time at Starbase: The vehicle that was being prepped for Flight 10 exploded on the test stand, forcing the company to press another Ship into service.

But that replacement upper stage performed well, as did its Super Heavy partner: Flight 10, which launched on Aug. 26, was a complete success. The booster came back to Earth as planned for a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about 6.5 minutes after liftoff, and Ship did the same in the Indian Ocean an hour later.

Ship also managed to relight one of its Raptors in space, demonstrating an ability that will be crucial for future missions to the moon and Mars. The vehicle also deployed some payloads — eight dummy versions of SpaceX's Starlink satellites, which were released on the same suborbital trajectory as that of Ship.

Flight 11 repeated those successes today.

The final flight of Starship V2

Flight 11's main goals were the same as those of Flight 10 — bring Super Heavy down in the Gulf and do the same with Ship off the coast of Western Australia, after an in-space Raptor relight and the deployment of eight more dummy Starlinks.

There were a few twists, however. For example, SpaceX employed a new landing burn strategy with Super Heavy today, trying out an engine configuration that will be used by the next-gen version of the booster.

"Super Heavy will ignite 13 engines at the start of the landing burn and then transition to a new configuration with five engines running for the divert phase," SpaceX wrote in a Flight 11 mission description. "Previously done with three engines, the planned baseline for V3 Super Heavy will use five engines during the section of the burn responsible for fine-tuning the booster’s path, adding additional redundancy for spontaneous engine shutdowns."

Flight 11 also marked the second-ever reflight of a Super Heavy: This same booster also conducted Flight 8, ending its duties that day with a return to Starbase and a chopsticks catch. SpaceX changed out just nine of its 33 Raptors ahead of today's flight, meaning that 24 of them were flight-proven.

The company tweaked Ship a bit as well, to gather data that could aid its future trips back to Earth. For example, SpaceX removed heat-shield tiles to stress-test certain "vulnerable areas" of the upper stage.

And, "to mimic the path a ship will take on future flights returning to Starbase, the final phase of Starship’s trajectory on Flight 11 includes a dynamic banking maneuver and will test subsonic guidance algorithms prior to a landing burn and splashdown in the Indian Ocean," SpaceX wrote in the mission description.

All of this went to plan on Flight 11, which kicked off with a launch from Starbase at 7:23 p.m. EDT (2323 GMT; 6:23 p.m. local Texas time). It was the final liftoff from the site's first orbital launch pad before it's overhauled to get ready for the Starship V3 variant.

"Among many other things, we're installing a new orbital launch mount, a new flame trench system, and upgrading the chopsticks for future catches," Jake Berkowitz, a SpaceX lead propulsion engineer, said during today's launch webcast. "So until that's complete, we'll be running launches from Pad 2, which will be online very soon."

Super Heavy and Ship separated about 2.5 minutes into flight today, and the booster made its pinpoint splashdown in the Gulf four minutes after that.

"Congrats to the whole SpaceX team," Berkowitz said after the huge booster hit the water. "That was incredible!"

Ship deployed the eight payloads over a six-minute stretch that began about 19 minutes after liftoff, when the vehicle was 119 miles (192 kilometers) above Earth. The vehicle also aced its brief Raptor relight, which occurred just under 38 minutes after launch.

Ship then made its own return to Earth, surviving the intense heat of reentry despite the selective heat shield tile-stripping. The vehicle aced its banking maneuver, then splashed down in the Indian Ocean a little over 66 minutes after liftoff.

And it was a pinpoint landing, occurring within view of a buoy-mounted camera that SpaceX set up beforehand. The dramatic imagery memorializes the successful sendoff for Starship V2, which now cedes the spotlight to its even bigger successors.

"We promised maximum excitement," Berkowitz said toward the end of today's launch webcast. "And Starship delivered!"

What is it?

The Lunar Electric Rover (LER) was developed as a versatile exploration vehicle designed to support long-duration surface missions on the moon. Unlike the Apollo-era lunar rovers, which were unpressurized and limited in range, the LER offers a pressurized cabin that allows astronauts to live and work inside for days without needing to return to a base habitat, potentially making harder-to-reach areas more accessible.

Where is it?

This photo was taken at Black Point Lava Flow in northern Arizona.

Why is it amazing?

The LER tests are part of NASA's Desert Research and Technology Studies ("Desert RATS") campaign. The program uses terrestrial environments like the harsh deserts of Arizona to simulate the conditions on other planets. The volcanic rock formations at Black Point Lava Flow provided challenges similar to those expected on the moon, making it a valuable testing ground for equipment, operations and human factors.

Want to learn more?

You can read more about lunar rovers and NASA's future trips to the moon via its Artemis program.

Representatives of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) took turns laying out their plans on Monday (Sept. 29) at the 2025 International Astronautical Congress (IAC) here in Sydney.

The One-to-One with Heads of Space Agencies plenary event kicked off with NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy being asked about his agency's plans for the moon. "It's been 53 years since we had humans on the moon, right? So I think it's important to go back. Starting next year, we're going back with Artemis 2; we're going out around the moon and back. Then, with Artemis 3, we're going to put astronauts on the south pole of the moon."

Duffy, asked about what success in space looks like 10 years into the future, said, "Sustained human life on the moon." That would also play a role in a much more challenging journey, he added: "I think we're going to have made leaps and bounds on our mission to get to Mars," and be on the cusp of putting boots on the Red Planet.

Head of ESA Josef Aschbacher spent his time talking about the agency's Vision 2040, an effort that he says aims to provide a framework of objectives for ESA beyond three-year funding cycles and the tenure of a single agency director general. "This is a much wider one, much stronger one, and a longer view strategy," Aschbacher said.

"This is something that is developed together with the member states," he added. The plan includes working with partners to get European astronauts to the moon, as well as developing key technologies and spacecraft for exploration.

This vision will also seek to boost European autonomy, resilience and independence in space, while underscoring the importance of cooperation and expanding collaboration with key partners such as JAXA and NASA.

India, meanwhile, stressed its ambition to get its own astronauts into space. ISRO chairman V. Narayanan outlined his country's growing ambitions for exploration and human spaceflight. India's Gaganyaan project to put astronauts into Earth orbit is progressing, despite delays. Narayanan said getting the launch vehicle rated for human spaceflight and conducting orbital flights with the crew module and reentry tests will prepare India to independently launch astronauts into space. The current target for the first crewed Gaganyaan spaceflight is early 2027.

V. Narayanan also stated that India's participation in the LUPEX joint south pole lunar landing mission with JAXA had recently been approved. That mission, in which India will provide the lander and JAXA the launch vehicle, is expected to fly later in the decade. Beyond this, ISRO is targeting 2040 for putting astronauts on the moon. "The exploration of the moon is going to be a continuous activity," V. Narayanan said.

Bian Zhigang, vice administrator of CNSA, outlined a number of recent successes, including the Chang'e 5 and Chang'e 6 moon sample-return missions, some of the material from which has been sent to international partners for study. The country's Tianwen 2 probe is also on its way to a near-Earth asteroid following launch in May this year.

While China's goal of landing astronauts on the moon by 2030 was not discussed, Bian did stress that China — which is beginning to construct its own satellite megaconstellations — is working on space debris mitigation, as well as space traffic management, including monitoring debris and providing alerts. The nation is also doing work that could help clean up Earth orbit. "We are currently researching the active removal of this space debris on orbit," Bian said through a translator.

CSA head Lisa Campbell also stated that Canada is preparing for one of its astronauts to fly around the moon as part of the Artemis 2 mission, set to launch early next year. But Canada also sees opportunities to make a mark globally in key areas of space, including in-space robotics, critical deep-space systems, AI applications, quantum capabilities and more. She also announced investments in dual-use space technologies and Earth observation initiatives that will also boost the Canadian economy.

Finally, JAXA president Hiroshi Yamakawa said that Japan is preparing to launch its first HTV-X, a new uncrewed cargo spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station. Launch is to take place a month from now, on Oct. 31, flying on the seventh H3 rocket.

Japan is also gearing up for an ambitious 2026 mission to sample Mars' moon Phobos. The spacecraft for the Martian Moons eXploration mission, or MMX, is currently undergoing final testing. "Launch will take place in 2026 and the samples will be back in 2031," Yamakawa said.

The IAC in Sydney is the 76th edition of the annual congress, which brings together space agencies, astronauts, scientists, researchers, industry and press. This year's event attracted around 7,000 participants.

The four astronauts of NASA's Artemis 2 mission, who could launch on their trip around the moon as early as Feb. 5, announced today (Sept. 24) that they have named their Orion capsule "Integrity."

"The name Integrity embodies the foundation of trust, respect, candor and humility across the crew and the many engineers, technicians, scientists, planners and dreamers required for mission success," NASA officials said in a statement today.

"The name is also a nod to the extensive integrated effort — from the more than 300,000 spacecraft components to the thousands of people across the world — that must come together to venture to the moon and back, inspire the world and set course for a long-term presence at the moon," they added.

The Artemis 2 crew consists of commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. The first three are all NASA astronauts, while Hansen represents the Canadian Space Agency.

The quartet will launch atop a Space Launch System rocket during a window that extends from Feb. 5 to April 26 of next year. The astronauts will fly Integrity on a loop around the moon and back home again, on a mission that will last about 10 Earth days.

Artemis 2 won't land on or orbit the moon. But it will be the first crewed mission to reach the lunar neighborhood since Apollo 17 in December 1972. And it will pave the way for Artemis 3, which will put astronauts down near the moon's south pole in 2027, if all goes according to plan.

And things are designed to accelerate from there: The Artemis program aims to establish a permanent, sustainable human presence on and around the moon, and to use the lessons learned via this effort to send astronauts to Mars.

The Artemis 2 crew didn't just pick "Integrity" out of a hat; arriving at the name was a long and drawn-out process, Wiseman said today during a press event at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"We got the four of us together and our backups, Jenny Gibbons from the Canadian Space Agency and Andre Douglas from NASA, and we went over to the quarantine facility here," Wiseman said. "We basically locked ourselves in there until we came up with a name."

They started with a lot of candidate monikers, he added.

"As we worked our way through this, we went big to small, which this crew does so well," Wiseman said. "And we started with the NASA core values, and then we looked at the Canadian Space Agency core values. And then we talked about what matters to us most in our core values. And then we looked out at what is going on with Artemis 2. What do we want this to be?"

In the end, he said, the crew determined that their chief goal for the mission is to help provide some "peace and hope for all humankind."

"So, we are bringing together the world," Wiseman said. "We are bringing together an amazing workforce, and they are bringing together an amazing vehicle. And at the end of all that, when you squeeze it all down, it created magic. So we're going to fly around the moon in the spacecraft Integrity."

It's a tradition in the human spaceflight world for a new spacecraft to be named by the first astronauts to fly it. For example, a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule made its debut this past June, on the private Ax-4 astronaut mission to the International Space Station. The Ax-4 crew gave that Dragon its name: Grace.

The 38-year-old U.S. Army helicopter pilot can't remember what first got him interested in flying, but what got him interested in NASA is clear: As a kid, Bailey saw the 1995 moon-mission movie "Apollo 13," which famously uses U.S. Navy helicopters to recreate the real-life splashdown that brought that dramatic, near-catastrophic mission to a safe close.

As "Apollo 13" replayed in theaters this week 30 years after its release, Bailey touched down in the agency's newly announced 10-person 2025 astronaut class — on his first try. Two years of basic training lie in front of Bailey (who doesn't yet know what he'll be asked to do first), but the future brings an intriguing possibility: a new generation of missions to the moon, where experience in flying helicopters should be a boon for NASA's Artemis mission training cycle.

Bailey emphasized that he is brand-new to the agency and therefore not versed in the specifics of, say, recent mountain training in Colorado that astronauts performed with a LUH-72 Lakota. But he has 30-plus aircraft types on his pilot resume, including famed rotary wing craft such as the UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47F Chinook.

When asked, Bailey cited one advantage of lunar training with a helicopter: landing with no runways. "We don't have, really, a landing environment that could accommodate much forward speed at all," Bailey told Space.com in an exclusive phone interview on Monday (Sept. 22), hours after he and the other nine newly minted astronaut candidates were revealed during a ceremony at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Helicopters perform vertical takeoffs and landings like moon landers, and Bailey said he can imagine the "external stimuli that you see and feel" on a chopper being "fairly similar" to a dusty, lunar environment. Bailey noted that in the U.S. Army, where he serves in the Warrant Officer corps, dusty landings are a fairly common part of flight training.

"It's some of our most intense takeoffs and landings," he said. "As you come in on an approach to a landing zone, you're always assessing to see if you think there's going to be dust, and how thick the dust is going to be. Then, when you decide that this is going to be a dusty landing, your technique becomes very specific: 'This is how I'm going to land, because at some point I'm going to lose sight of the ground, and if I lose sight of the ground, I need to make sure that I'm in a safe position to land, still.'"

He explained that in a "dusty scenario," you need to set yourself up at a high altitude during the approach, "where you can almost change nothing with the helicopter, and have it continue on its trajectory all the way to its touchdown point." That takes a lot of training time at the controls, he emphasized, to learn to fly with as few "inputs" as possible before touching the ground.

Astronauts who landed on the moon with the Apollo program appear to have used a similar technique. Neil Armstrong, who became the first person to land a spacecraft on the moon during Apollo 11 in 1969, said in his authorized biography "First Man" (Simon & Schuster, 2005) that he initially set up the Eagle lunar module with slight forward momentum to avoid tipping back into any unseen divots behind him. But after scanning the ground, Armstrong deliberately stopped that motion just above the surface, to allow for a straight drop.

As for the dust, Armstrong laconically remarked that trying to spot (and navigate by) stationary rocks through the dust sheet below meant "I spent more time trying to arrest translational velocity than I thought would be necessary."

Bailey graduated from the famed U.S. Naval Test Pilot School and served as an experimental test pilot. These experiences together have helped him, Bailey said, with assessing risks during planning, mitigating those risks and then applying the lessons learned on a mission.

"I think that going into space is going to be very similar," he said, in "that every flight is almost a test flight, that you're going out into the unknown."

The four astronauts of NASA's Artemis 2 mission to the moon, which could launch as early as Feb. 5 of next year, are deep in training for the first crewed lunar flight in over 50 years. They'll launch atop NASA's giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket aboard an Orion spacecraft, whose name was revealed on Wednesday (Sept. 24) — "Integrity."

"We're going to launch when this vehicle is ready, when this team is ready, and we're going to go execute this mission to the best of our abilities," Artemis 2 commander Reid Wiseman told reporters here at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) during a press conference on Wednesday.

"We might go to the moon — that's where we want to go — but it is a test mission, and we are ready for every scenario as we ride this amazing Space Launch System on the Orion spacecraft, 250,000 miles away," he added. "It's going to be amazing."

Joining Wiseman on Artemis 2 — a 10-day trip around the moon and back to Earth — are pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch (both of NASA), as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, also a mission specialist. The mission, decades in the making since NASA first unveiled a planned crewed return to the moon in 2004, will set the stage for an even more ambitious flight: Artemis 3, the first astronaut landing on the moon of NASA's Artemis program.

Artemis 2 will mark a number of firsts: The first crewed moon flight since NASA's famed Apollo program. The first woman and person of color to visit lunar realms. The first astronaut flight of NASA's Artemis program, which seeks not only to land humans on the moon but also to conduct sustained crewed exploration of the lunar south pole and beyond to prepare for an eventual trip to Mars.

The flight will also mark the farthest trip by humans into deep space, potentially going up to 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers) beyond the moon — farther than NASA's Apollo 13 astronauts flew during their harrowing, near-disastrous flight in 1970.

Glover said he tries not to think "about all of these grand things," however.

"That's a distraction," he said during Wednesday's event. "If we want to live up to the standards that we owe the American and Canadian [public] and humanity in general, we have to be able to focus and know what the next right thing is to do. And so I actually spend a lot of time clearing that out of my head so I can focus on my job."

Koch voiced similar sentiments, invoking a conversation she had recently with Fred Haise, Apollo 13's lunar module pilot.

"I met Fred Haise at a recent event here at JSC. He said 'Hi,' and then he said, 'I heard you're going to beat our record.' It made me realize maybe he's paying attention to it more than we are," Koch said. "I think that sometimes when we talk about superlatives, we may inadvertently ignore the real story of what's going on in our mission."That story, she added, is the push to return to the moon, observe the lunar surface and conduct 21st-century science on how the human body copes with deep-space travel to help prepare for eventual trips to Mars. "It's about the teamwork and the work that went into that, and the dedication that it took to take on those big challenges," Koch said.

The trip to the moon may seem like a short one for some of the Artemis 2 crew. In 2019, Koch shattered the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, spending 328 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Glover spent 168 days on the station during a previous flight, and Wiseman, NASA's former chief astronaut, spent 165 days in space on his own ISS flight. But for Hansen, Artemis 2's moon shot will be his first trip to space.

"It truly is an absolute privilege," Hansen said. "For us, Artemis 2 is about much more than just going back to the moon. It is about the pursuit of excellence."

Signs here at JSC, home of the agency's Mission Control centers and astronaut training, tout the flight's looming launch. "20 weeks away!" reads one sign at a training center.

NASA hopes to launch Artemis 2, a mission that has seen several delays since the successful Artemis 1 uncrewed test flight to lunar orbit in November 2022, between early February and April 26. The agency had hoped to fly sooner, but concerns about how Orion's heat shield performed during Artemis 1's reentry to Earth atmosphere have caused some delays.

NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy has said repeatedly that the agency's Artemis program is pivotal to the United States' ability to remain competitive on the international stage, particularly against China. The U.S., Duffy has said, is in a new space race with China to send astronauts to the moon.

"I'll be damned if the Chinese beat NASA, or beat America, back to the moon," Duffy said as he announced NASA's newest astronaut class here on Monday (Sept. 22). "We love competition, and we are going to win the second space race back to the moon."

Hansen said that he understands the perception of a race but feels that the international collaboration of Artemis 2 is a benefit.

"We're just going to pursue excellence," Hansen said. "That's how you win a space race, and that's just how you move our countries forward. More importantly, that's how you create an environment where you might encourage others to collaborate."

Glover said that he's focused on a different kind of race.

"The race that I think the most about is the relay race that we're in," he said. "We are going together, and our mission success is built on handing off, starting off with Artemis 3 — that sets up our country and our partners to go back to the surface of the moon."

HOUSTON — NASA's ambitious mission to return astronauts to the moon for the first time this century is on track to launch no later than April 2026, but it just might fly sooner if all goes well.

The 10-day-long Artemis 2 mission, which will fly four astronauts around the moon on NASA's Orion spacecraft, could lift off as early as Feb. 5, mission managers said today (Sept. 23) during an event here at the agency's Johnson Space Center (JSC).

"We together have a front-row seat to history: We're returning to the moon after over 50 years," Lakiesha Hawkins, NASA acting deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development, told reporters in a press conference today.

If Artemis 2 does lift off on Feb. 5, it will be at night, NASA officials said. The space agency has about five days apiece in February, March and April to launch the flight. The latest possible date is April 26, according to NASA.

NASA will aim to hit the earlier part of that launch window, Hawkins said, but she stressed that crew safety will drive the timeline.

"We want to emphasize that safety is our top priority," she said. "And so, as we work through these operational preparations, as we finish stacking the rocket, we're continuing to assess to make sure that we do things in a safe way."

Artemis 2, the first crewed mission of NASA's Artemis program, will launch to the moon atop the agency's towering Space Launch System megarocket (known as SLS), as the vanguard flight for a crewed U.S. return to the moon. The mission will be commanded by NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, with fellow agency spaceflyer Victor Glover as pilot. NASA's Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen round out the crew as mission specialists.

The mission will fly on a "free-return" trajectory, sending the Artemis 2 astronauts around the moon on a path that ensures their return to Earth without entering lunar orbit, let alone touching down on the surface.

"They're going at least 5,000 nautical miles [9,260 kilometers] past the moon, which is much higher than previous missions have gone," said Jeff Radigan of JSC, the lead Artemis 2 flight director. "So, the moon's going to look a little bit smaller."

Artemis 2 follows the first Artemis test flight: the uncrewed Artemis 1, which launched an Orion spacecraft to lunar orbit in November 2022 and successfully brought it back to Earth about four weeks later. Artemis 2 was initially expected to launch this year, but NASA pushed the mission into 2026 after the Artemis 1 Orion capsule's heat shield charred more severely than expected during its reentry to Earth's atmosphere.

The Artemis 2 team has studied this issue extensively and taken measures to minimize the chances of heat shield problems during reentry on the upcoming mission, said Rick Henfling of JSC, lead Artemis 2 entry flight director.

"We had a number of tests, and they all helped back up this understanding of what was going on in the char," Henfling said of the Artemis 1 heat shield data. "And so the Artemis 2 trajectory that we're going to fly is going to be one that is not going to replicate that temperature environment, which was conducive to that increased gas generation rate."

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA's launch director for Artemis 2, further explained the liquid hydrogen leaks that delayed the Artemis 1 launch (it lifted off on its third try) should also be solved at this point. The launch team has made modifications at the launch pad and adjusted the fueling process to reduce the risk of such leaks, she said.

"We learned an awful lot during Artemis 1," Blackwell-Thompson said. "We learned the relationship between the flow rates, the pressures and how those manifest, or could manifest, into leaks."

Artemis 2's Boeing-built SLS rocket is nearly complete at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida, with its Northrop Grumman-built solid rocket boosters attached, Blackwell-Thompson said. In the coming weeks, the Orion capsule for the flight and its adapter will be added. NASA expects to show off the fully complete Artemis 2 rocket in October.

Blackwell-Thompson and the other NASA officials who spoke today repeatedly stressed that Artemis 2, though crewed, is still a test flight. Thus, the agency will learn a lot from it while working hard to keep the astronauts safe and check off as many mission goals as possible.

"A test flight doesn't have one singular objective; it's got many of them," Radigan said. "To call this mission fully successful, we need to go fly by the moon, bring the crew home safely and welcome them back with open arms."

On Monday (Sept. 22), the space agency announced the 10 members of its newest astronaut class — five men and five women who will train for potential missions to commercial space stations in Earth orbit, at the moon and (perhaps) on Mars.

One of the 10 is Anna Menon, who already has extensive experience in the final frontier: She flew to Earth orbit in September 2024 on SpaceX's pioneering Polaris Dawn mission.

Polaris Dawn was the first mission in the Polaris Program, an ambitious project organized and funded by billionaire tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman. (Isaacman was in line to be NASA administrator until late May, when President Donald Trump pulled his nomination.)

Isaacman commanded Polaris Dawn, which sent him, pilot Scott "Kidd" Poteet and mission specialists Menon and Sarah Gillis — both SpaceX engineers — to Earth orbit aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule "Resilience" on Sept. 10, 2024.

The five-day mission made history in multiple ways. For example, it reached a maximum altitude of 870 miles (1,400.7 kilometers), getting farther from Earth than any crewed spaceflight since the Apollo era. The Apollo missions were also male-only, so Gillis and Menon flew higher on Polaris Dawn than any woman ever had before.

In addition, Polaris Dawn featured the first-ever private spacewalk. Resilience's hatch opened on Sept. 12, 2024, exposing all four crewmembers to the vacuum of space. Then, Isaacman and Gillis partially exited the capsule, earning unobstructed views of Earth far below.

Interestingly, 39-year-old Menon didn't mention Polaris Dawn during her brief remarks at the astronaut-announcement ceremony on Monday, which was held at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Rather, she focused on her biomedical background — she holds a master's in biomedical engineering from Duke University — and what the future may hold in the field of space medicine.

"My first role out of graduate school was here at NASA's Johnson Space Center," Menon said on Monday. "I worked as a biomedical flight controller, and in that role, our job was to support the medical hardware and software on the International Space Station and help keep the astronauts healthy and safe from Mission Control. I am so thrilled to be back here with the NASA family.

"And, you know, as I reflect on the future of space medicine, I think it's really bright," she added. "We are born into one G, and so when you go into zero G, so many things change. As more and more people venture into space, and we seek to go further than ever before, we have this awesome opportunity to learn a tremendous amount to help support those astronauts and those people that are flying in those adventures and help keep them healthy and safe. So it's an exciting time to be here, and I couldn't be more thrilled and honored."

Menon's classmates in the 2025 NASA astronaut candidate class — the 24th in the agency's history, and its first since 2021 — are Ben Bailey, Lauren Edgar, Adam Fuhrmann, Cameron Jones, Yuri Kubo, Rebecca Lawler, Imelda Muller, Erin Overcash and Katherine Spies. You can learn more about each of them in our announcement story.

The candidates will now undergo two years of training, which will prepare them for a variety of potential space missions. Some of these astronauts may end up going to the moon as part of NASA's Artemis program — and some may even be among the first to set foot on Mars.

Menon isn't the first person to reach orbit before being selected for a NASA astronaut class; a number of others did so during the space shuttle era. For example, Japanese astronaut Mamoru Mohri, Canada's Steven MacLean and Italian Umberto Guidoni had all flown on the shuttle as international payload specialists before being chosen for NASA's Group 16 astronaut class in 1996.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 10:35 a.m. ET on Sept. 23 to include a paragraph giving examples of other people who reached orbit before being chosen for a NASA astronaut class.

The Space Launch System (SLS) and the Lunar Gateway are just a few of the technological marvels driving this mission forward. Each component represents years of innovation, collaboration, and ambition.

But Artemis isn't just about rockets and rendezvous, it's about reigniting global excitement for space exploration. It's a call to dream bigger, reach farther, and explore deeper. This quiz will test your knowledge of all things Artemis.

Whether you're a seasoned space buff or just curious about NASA’s next giant leap, this quiz will challenge your knowledge and spark your imagination.

Try it out below and see how well you score!

HOUSTON — NASA has introduced its new class of astronaut candidates, some of whom may be among the first people to set foot on Mars.

The cadre — the 24th astronaut class in NASA's history, and the first new one since 2021 — was announced today (Sept. 22) during a ceremony here at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

The newly unveiled astronaut candidates — five men and five women — were selected from a pool of more than 8,000 applicants. NASA's call for applications opened for about a month last year, just as the previous class graduated.

"This selection was challenging, competitive and very difficult, but what we have for you here today is a group of individuals who are not only exceptional but who will be inspirational for the United States of America, and for our planet," Norm Knight, NASA flight operations director, said during today's ceremony.

The group now waits for their training to begin. They'll soon report back to JSC, to take on lessons in spaceflight, spacewalks, engineering and every other skill an astronaut needs to survive in space.

They'll graduate in about two years, just as NASA aims to land astronauts on the moon as a part of the Artemis 3 mission. This new class will be too green for selection on Artemis 3, but if NASA's Artemis program continues under its current design, Artemis 3 will help lead to the establishment of a sustained presence on the lunar surface, as a proving ground for future crewed missions to Mars.

While some of these astronaut candidates (or ASCANs for short) may in fact stamp the first human boot prints in the Red Planet's rusty regolith, others may become the first NASA astronauts to live and work aboard a commercial space station in low Earth orbit (LEO).

The International Space Station (ISS) is heading for retirement in late 2030 or early 2031. NASA hopes to continue its LEO research operations once the ISS is gone but is preparing to shed the financial burden of ongoing station maintenance and management.

Instead, NASA plans to turn to commercial LEO destinations. Several companies are currently developing their own stations, including Blue Origin, Axiom Space and Vast Space. Depending on these projects' development timelines, there's a good chance that these new ASCANs will be the first NASA astronauts to live in space aboard a commercial outpost.

Here's a brief rundown of the newly announced astronaut candidates, with biographical details provided by NASA:

Meet the astronauts

NASA has high hopes for the new class, which could take part in some historic missions over the coming years.

"You are America's best and brightest, and we're going to need America's best and brightest, because we have a bold exploration plan for the future," acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said during today's event.

"We are going back to the moon," he added. "This time, we're going to stay, and from what we learn on our mission to the moon, we're going to go to Mars, and we're going to go beyond, into the unknown."

And the U.S. is going to notch that moon goal before China does, Duffy stressed.

"I'll be damned if the Chinese beat NASA, or beat America, back to the moon," he said. "We are going to win."

What is it?

With a proposed launch date in early 2026, Artemis 2 will build on the accomplishments of Artemis 1, which launched in November 2022. However, unlike Artemis 1, which sent an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to lunar orbit and back, Artemis 2 will include four astronauts, who will fly by the moon on a roughly 10-day space mission.

The astronauts are NASA Commander Reid Wiseman, NASA pilot Victor Glover, NASA mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency mission specialist Jeremy Hansen.

Where is it?

This photo was taken at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, where part of the Artemis 2 crew training is taking place.

Why is it amazing?

As part of their training, the four Artemis 2 crew members run through a series of protocols to practice observing and photographing the moon from their mockup Orion capsule. While Orion is equipped with advanced navigation and guidance systems, the astronauts must also be ready to rely on their training as a backup.

By rehearsing in a full-scale capsule mockup, the crew learns how the moon and Earth will appear through Orion's windows, how to position themselves for the best visibility, and how to record observations under the same spatial and lighting constraints they will face during their flight.

Want to learn more?

You can read more about the upcoming Artemis 2 launch and the goals of the mission.

NASA's Artemis 2 crew will discuss their upcoming moon mission today and you can watch the events live.

The action actually started on Monday (Sept. 22), when the agency unveiled its 2025 astronaut class. These candidates, selected from a pool of 8,000 applicants, will undergo two years of training and then become eligible for missions to the International Space Station, the moon or Mars.

And NASA is holding an online event today (Sept. 24) to discuss the Artemis 2 mission, which will launch four astronauts on a journey around the moon in early 2026, if all goes to plan.

You'll be able to watch all of it live here at Space.com courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency. Here's a brief rundown of the events:

Monday, Sept. 22

12:30 p.m EDT (1630 GMT): 2025 astronaut candidate selection ceremony

Tuesday, Sept. 23

10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT): Artemis 2 mission overview briefing.

Participants will be:

• Lakiesha Hawkins, acting deputy associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
• Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis launch director, NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida
• Judd Frieling, lead Artemis 2 ascent flight director, NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston
• Jeff Radigan, lead Artemis 2 flight director, JSC
• Rick Henfling, lead Artemis II entry flight director, JSC
• Daniel Florez, test director, Exploration Ground Systems, KSC

12 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT): Artemis 2 science and technology briefing, with the following participants:

• Matt Ramsey, Artemis 2 mission manager, NASA Headquarters
• Debbie Korth, deputy Orion Program manager, JSC
• Jacob Bleacher, manager, Science, Technology Utilization, and Integration, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
• Mark Clampin, acting deputy associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters

Wednesday, Sept. 24

10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT): Artemis 2 crew news conference, featuring:

• Reid Wiseman, commander (NASA)
• Victor Glover, pilot (NASA)
• Christina Koch, mission specialist (NASA)
• Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist (Canadian Space Agency)

The NASA moon robot, whose name is short for "Volatiles Investigating Polar Explorer Rover," will hitch a ride to the lunar surface with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin in late 2027, agency officials announced this afternoon.

"NASA is leading the world in exploring more of the moon than ever before, and this delivery is just one of many ways we’re leveraging U.S. industry to support a long-term American presence on the lunar surface," acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said in a statement today.

The VIPER mission took shape as an envisioned key piece of NASA's Artemis program, which seeks to establish a long-term, sustainable human presence on and around the moon by 2030 or so.

That presence will be centered on the moon's south polar region, which is thought to harbor lots of water ice. VIPER was designed to vet the abundance and accessibility of this important resource, which can be used for life support as well as be split it into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms to make rocket fuel.

VIPER was originally supposed to land on the moon in late 2023 aboard Griffin, a lander built by Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic; Astrobotic signed a contract to this effect with NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

But delays with both Griffin and VIPER pushed the target date back multiple times. Then, in July 2024, NASA announced it was canceling the over-budget mission, even though the car-sized rover was already fully assembled. Doing so would save about $84 million, according to the agency, which had spent roughly $450 million on the mission to that point.

NASA also said it planned to solicit offers from private companies, to see if any wanted to team up to get VIPER to the moon (and take on some of the cost). If that didn't work out, the agency said engineers would take VIPER apart and put its key instruments on other moon robots going forward.

This past May, however, NASA announced it was putting the brakes on that industry partnership search, saying that it would "announce a new strategy for VIPER in the future."

We learned that new strategy today: It's a new CLPS deal with Blue Origin,with a total potential value of $190 million. The company will fulfill this goal using its robotic Blue Moon Mark 1 lander, which is slated to debut later this year on another NASA CLPS mission to the lunar south pole.

"NASA is committed to studying and exploring the moon, including learning more about water on the lunar surface, to help determine how we can harness local resources for future human exploration," Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in today's statement.

"We've been looking for creative, cost-effective approaches to accomplish these exploration goals," she added. "This private sector-developed landing capability enables this delivery and focuses our investments accordingly — supporting American leadership in space and ensuring our long-term exploration is robust and affordable."

If all goes according to plan, VIPER will touch down near the moon's south pole and hunt for water ice in the area for about 100 Earth days. NASA will be in charge of these science operations; Blue Origin is responsible for the landing mission architecture, integration of VIPER into Blue Moon and deployment of the rover onto the lunar surface. The CLPS contract does not cover the mission's launch.

What is it?

To prepare for lunar landings, astronauts must train in environments that mimic the moon's terrain. The High-Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site in Colorado provides the perfect place to practice. Operated by the Colorado Army National Guard, the site is used by NASA to simulate disorienting slopes, shadows, uneven surfaces and dynamic lighting conditions that astronauts may face when trying to land on the moon.

Where is it?

The High-Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site is near Gypsum, Colorado.

Why is it amazing?

This practice site was only recently certified by NASA as an acceptable course for the Artemis 2 mission. According to NASA, "During the two-week certification run in late August 2025, NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick and Mark Vande Hei participated in flight and landing training to help certify the course. The pair, along with trained instructor pilots with the Army National Guard, took turns flying a helicopter and navigating to landing zones."

This recent certification and preparation by the Artemis 2 team is a good reminder that getting humans safely to the moon and its surface relies heavily on work that astronauts and support staff do here on Earth.

Want to learn more?

You can read more about the Artemis 2 astronauts and their preparations for their upcoming lunar flyby mission.

The second installment of NASA's Artemis program to return to the moon and establish a sustained human presence in deep space is set to be the first crewed flight test of its Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The four-person crew is tasked with putting the vessel through its paces in the cislunar environment, and performing several science experiments during their mission.

Some of that research involves the astronauts themselves, who will turn into a quartet of biomedical subjects to help NASA gather in-flight data on the human body beyond low Earth orbit for the first time in more than 50 years. As they have with hundreds of physiological tests conducted aboard the International Space Station (ISS), NASA will add the research to its growing understanding of the biological repercussions of life in microgravity, according to a recent release.

Standard measures

One of the experiments the Artemis 2 astronauts will undertake will see them join a long-running NASA effort to build a comprehensive understanding of how spaceflight affects human health. Samples of blood, urine and saliva are being collected in the months before launch, and the astronauts will undergo regular checks during their 10-day mission and follow-ups after their return.

NASA hopes to use the samples to track changes in cardiovascular health, nutrition, immunity and stress across multiple stages of training, flight and recovery.

ARCHeR: Sleep and stress tracking

The Artemis Research for Crew Health and Readiness (ARCHeR) project will investigate how crew performance might be affected by time spent as such a far distance from Earth while inside Orion's confined space, combined with the astronauts' demanding schedule.

Each Artemis 2 astronaut will wear wrist sensors to log movement and sleep throughout the mission. Pre- and post-mission evaluations will be compared to in-flight data to better understand how the deep space mission influences the crew's alertness, stress and ability to work together cohesively.

Immune system monitoring

Samples provided by the crew before, during and after their mission will also be used to study their immune systems. In this case, immune system markers in their saliva samples will help researchers evaluate how the body reacts to space radiation.

To save space and power aboard Orion during their mission, the crew is foregoing refrigeration of their in-flight saliva samples, and will instead make their deposits on specially designed dab papers, which will absorb the samples for simpler storage. Once they return, scientists will test the papers for dormant viruses triggered by the microgravity environment — a phenomenon seen aboard the ISS, where stress has been documented as a trigger to reactivate illnesses like chickenpox and shingles.

AVATAR organ-on-a-chip study

Artemis 2 astronauts will also be accompanied by thumb-sized "avatars" of themselves, in the form of blood samples grown to simulate bone marrow on organ-on-a-chip devices.

These chips will ride inside Orion as it passes through the Van Allen belts — zones of charged particles between the Earth and moon — testing how marrow responds to deep space radiation and microgravity. Results will be compared to ISS experiments to see if the chip technology can accurately predict how tissues react outside Earth's radiation-hardened magnetosphere.

Radiation

During Artemis 1, Orion carried 5,600 passive and 34 active radiation sensors. For Artemis 2, the spacecraft has been reduced to a modest six active sensors inside the cabin. Additionally, astronauts will wear personal dosimeters.

The devices will measure the consistent radiation exposure experienced throughout the mission, and detect sudden spikes from things like solar storms. If readings reach dangerous levels, astronauts can construct a makeshift radiation shield inside Orion, fortifying themselves between the spacecraft's heatshield and water storage canisters, both of which are better at absorbing penetrating radiation than other onboard materials.

NASA has selected Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen as the crew for the Artemis 2 mission. They are scheduled to launch no earlier than Feb. 2026, with a launch window that extends through April.

Those comments were delivered during a virtual Artemis 4 landing site science workshop on Sept. 10 by Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist at NASA. Bleacher, a planetary geologist by training, has a mandate from NASA for "technology and architecture development to enable human exploration of the moon and Mars," his agency biography states.

Bleacher said the greater Artemis program will eventually be aiming for far longer stays on the moon than the short two- or three-day Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s achieved. "We have learned from going to the moon in the past with Apollo, but we're really on a different trajectory here," he said. "We want to begin to learn how to live away from the Earth."

The workshop was meant to ask scientists and other community participants for "science figures of merit" to help "evaluate and prioritize candidate landing sites with the highest science potential," the agency added. Some of the factors being considered include learning about evolution of planets, the processes that influence lunar regolith or dust, as well as objectives in fields like sun science or physical sciences.

NASA didn't conduct the workshop in isolation. Over the last decade, scientists have gained a better understanding of the South Pole-Aitken basin in which Artemis astronauts will land. That science was said to be one of the highest priorities of both the 2013 and 2023 planetary decadal surveys, which are essentially agreements by that community about which space missions to prioritize for science objectives, among other documents.

Artemis 4 is officially slated to launch no earlier than 2028, although that is pending progress of other missions of the Artemis program. (For perspective, NASA has not yet launched any astronauts on the program, although one crew — for the moon-circling Artemis 2 mission — is readying for a launch as soon as April 2026.)

Artemis 4 astronauts will spend six days on the moon's surface, return lunar soil samples to Earth, collect data using astronaut observations and mission instruments, and execute up to four extravehicular activities (moonwalks) ranging as far as 1.2 miles (2 km) from the mission's lander, NASA materials state.

Picking an exact landing site will take some time, although NASA will place the mission in the south pole region of the moon where ice and other critical minerals may be available for astronauts to use for future excursions.

And part of what Bleacher would like to see is not only infrastructure for longer lunar missions, but incentive for commercial industry to work alongside the agency for the long haul. He emphasized that the expense and complication of lunar missions means NASA will continue to seek partners, meaning both U.S. commercial partners and international agencies.

"What we're trying to understand is, what do we — NASA, the United States government — need to put in place that welcomes and encourages that partnership so that we really can develop that longer term presence on the moon, maybe even permanent presence on the moon? And what really drives the development of that lunar economy? Who wants to be there, who wants to be working there, and what can we provide to get that foothold?"

As the name implies, Artemis 4 will be the fourth mission of the larger Artemis program, including dozens of other nations working together under the Artemis Accords, that seeks to put astronaut boots on the moon again while establishing an American-led framework for deep space exploration.

An uncrewed mission called Artemis 1 flew around the moon and back again in 2022. Four astronauts aim to do the same next year aboard Artemis 2: NASA's Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

The next mission would be Artemis 3, currently aiming for a moon landing. NASA's official schedule has a target date of 2027, but that is pending readiness of SpaceX's Starship Human Landing System (HLS) to carry humans for a landing. Artemis 4 would be the next mission after that.

A tour of Lunar Outpost's Mission Control here offered an up-close look at the status of the group's LTV design, the Eagle, and how use of its Autonomous Test Facility in Rye, Colorado is helping the company develop and mature the off-Earth, off-road vehicle.

The design is "a mix between a dune buggy and a heavy-duty truck," said Justin Cyrus, Lunar Outpost's CEO and co-founder.

Lunar Outpost is one of three teams announced by NASA in April 2024 to perform a one-year feasibility study for the space agency. The contract was awarded to the Lunar Dawn team, led by Lunar Outpost in collaboration with General Motors, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, MDA Space and Leidos.

Intuitive Machines and Venturi Astrolab were also selected for LTV work. NASA is expected to announce its LTV selectee by the end of the year.

Tantalizingly close

A trial run of technology developed by Lunar Outpost — its small Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP) rover — has already flown to the moon, tucked aboard Intuitive Machine's Athena lunar lander.

However, Athena tipped onto its side during its lunar landing on March 6, 2025. The mishap prevented MAPP's deployment to the lunar surface and planned exploration of the lunar south pole environment.

"Unfortunately, that first mission didn't go quite as we hoped," Cyrus said. "But we were able to control the rover in cislunar [Earth-moon] space…and were able to get data from the lunar surface."

"We got tantalizingly close to actually driving on the moon's surface," he added.

Another Lunar Outpost payload is slated to be on board Intuitive Machine's next moon landing attempt, which is slated for 2026. That mission will target the Reiner Gamma region, to study the mysterious natural feature there that's known as a lunar swirl.

Cozy setting

Lunar Outpost's Mission Control is a cozy setting. A few rows of high-tech, high-definition, fast-refresh-rate computer screens sit under ceiling light fixtures that change the color of the room as the situation dictates.

"We use red, green, blue, purple for different modes and operations," Cyrus said, noting that a very bright red indicated a crisis situation. Each station tackles a different function, handled by a flight director and support personnel.

Large screens capture the scene at Lunar Outpost's Autonomous Test Facility in Rye. That site has been specially landscaped with craters, rocks and berms.

"This is one of our most informative test sites. We can test large-scale vehicles for long periods of time," whether they are under autonomous control or with human interface and interaction, Cyrus pointed out.

Test evaluations of moon-bound equipment are being run through the "Stargate" Lunar Outpost mission control platform. It is designed to enable operator decisions in real time, providing the human touch while teleoperating robotic systems and tasking them with complex autonomous functions.

Different operating modes

⁠The Lunar Outpost LTV will be able to make tracks on the moon in different modes. It's designed to be driven actively by astronauts on the surface of the moon, or in full autonomy drive without human intervention, or teleoperated from mission control here on Earth.

"It can go up to 25 kilometers per hour [15 mph]. You don't want to go faster than that. When you hit a rock at that speed, you can get a pretty dramatic response," said Cyrus. The LTV will normally operate at speeds lower than 15 kph (9 mph). But in emergency traverse scenarios on flat plains, he said, the LTV can clock faster speeds.

Autonomous LTV operations can be used for repetitive and mundane tasks. A robotic arm on the back of the vehicle can reach out a couple of meters to clean off solar panels or repair moon landing and launch pads. That feature will enable astronauts to spend their precious time on high-value science and exploration objectives, Cyrus said.

Lunar Outpost's LTV design includes easy grabbing of tools and a workbench for Artemis astronauts.

Cyrus said that astronaut feedback about the LTV has been priceless. For example, astronauts have given advice about the height of the stairs to get in and out of the vehicle, how much they'll be able to raise their knees and the proper positioning of grab handles taking into account the reduced mobility that spacesuits impose. All of it has proven invaluable, Cyrus said.

Deep dives

The LTV will have to be able to operate on the moon during both day and night, so thermal management of the vehicle will be key.

Cyrus told Space.com that Lunar Outpost is pushing forward on unique technologies that will allow the vehicle to dive deeply into permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) on the moon.

Always in darkness, PSRs are thought to retain water ice that, if present, could be converted into drinkable water, breathable oxygen and rocket fuel.

"We can not only survive but operate in PSRs for many tens of hours at a time," said Cyrus.

"We are a lunar mobility company," he added. "We've put in a lot of hard work to 'de-risk' our technology over the years … to validate our critical systems … to get ready for lunar surface missions. We are ready to drive."

The agency put out a call for volunteers to passively track the Artemis 2 mission's Orion spacecraft when it launches in April 2026 or thereabouts, to keep an eye as the four astronauts aboard loop around the moon and then come back to Earth.

Examples of volunteers may include "international space agencies, academic institutions, commercial companies, nonprofits and private citizens," according to a NASA statement. You can read more about the opportunity and apply at this website, before the deadline of Oct. 27 at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT).

NASA, of course, already has tracking and communications systems that will watch over the Artemis 2 astronauts: The agency's Deep Space Network and Near Space Network sets of dishes will help NASA with launch, deep-space operations and reentry.

But the agency is asking for help from external groups "to further understand industry's tracking capabilities," under a request from NASA's Space Communication and Navigation (SCAN) program.

"By offering this opportunity to the broader aerospace community, we can identify available tracking capabilities outside the government," Kevin Coggins, NASA's deputy associate administrator for SCAN at the agency's headquarters in Washington, said in the statement.

"This data will help inform our transition to a commercial-first approach, ultimately strengthening the infrastructure needed to support Artemis missions — and our long-term moon to Mars objectives."

On board Artemis 2 will be NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman (commander), Victor Glover (pilot) and Christina Koch (mission specialist), and Canadian Space Agency astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen. Glover will be the first Black astronaut ever to fly a moon mission, while Koch will be the first woman and Hansen the first non-American to do so.

The tracking request follows previous work for the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission in 2022, which saw 10 volunteer organizations track Orion on its trip to lunar orbit and back. The participants "attempted to receive Orion's signal and use their respective ground antennas to track and measure changes in the radio waves transmitted by Orion," NASA stated.

Artemis 2 will serve as a key checkout for NASA's larger Artemis program, which aims to put boots on the moon with the next mission: Artemis 3. An international crew will touch down using SpaceX's Starship lander no earlier than 2027, assuming technical and training milestones are reached.

None of those target dates are set in stone, however. For example, the Artemis 2 astronauts have repeatedly emphasized that their mission is developmental and, as such, the crew is not working to a schedule but instead to the pace of training and technology development.

NASA plans to launch its Artemis 2 mission to send astronauts around the moon and back early next year, and follow this up with the Artemis 3 crewed moon landing in 2027. China, meanwhile, has committed to making its first crewed lunar landing before 2030, and has recently announced progress on the hardware it needs, including the Long March 10 rocket and Lanyue lunar lander.

Those timelines appear to put the U.S. in the lead, but experts told a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last week, titled "There's a Bad Moon on the Rise," that America is in real danger of losing the moon race to China. Among the reasons they cited was the pace of development of SpaceX's Starship, which will serve as the Artemis 3 lunar lander, and the need for multiple refueling missions to get Starship to the moon.

"Unless something changes, it is highly unlikely the United States will beat China's projected timeline," former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told the hearing.

If China does land first, there could be profound repercussions for the United States, according to Mike Gold, president of civil and international space at Redwire and a key figure in formulating the Artemis Accords.

"Let me put you this way: China lands on the moon. The next day, we see tremendous benefits [for them] politically, where our eyes turn to them, not only for space exploration, but for national security agreements, for trade agreements," Gold said in response to a question on the importance of landing first.

"The meeting that's occurring now between China, India and Russia that you're seeing today — if China lands on the moon first, that will deepen and strengthen those economic ties," Gold added.

"China is very good at leveraging space to drive the dynamics that Jim Bridenstine and the general [Lt. Gen. John Shaw] are talking about," he continued. "If they get there first, we will see a global realignment that will impact our economy, our tax base, our ability to innovate and our national security in terms of diplomacy and geopolitics that will affect security and many other aspects of our daily lives."

The warning is stark enough in terms of the United States and its leadership in space and on Earth. Beyond a showcase demonstration of capabilities, however, a more lasting impact may be made by the country or countries that establish a sustained lunar presence.

Whether or not the prize for landing astronauts on the moon for the first time in the 21st century is a favorable shift in geopolitical dynamics, there may be tangible goals within reach on the moon.

Gold, in his submitted testimony for the hearing, stated the following: "If America isn't the first to return to the moon, we risk ceding the best ice reserves to China," adding that this resource can be split into oxygen and hydrogen for fuel, or used for drinkable water.

However, the indications are that China is working first toward a crewed mid-latitude lunar landing, rather than targeting the lunar south pole where water ice is believed to be relatively abundant. At the same time, China's robotic Chang'e 7 and Chang'e 8 missions, launching in 2026 and 2028-2029 respectively, will aim to land at key spots near the lunar south pole and prospect for volatiles such as water ice and test out the ability to print bricks that would enable the construction of lunar habitats.

Allen Cutler, president and CEO of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, noted in his testimony that whoever emerges as the leader in lunar exploration will set the rules for the rest going forward in terms of the use of space resources, lunar governance and the formation of international partnerships.

"The country that lands on the moon first will shape the rules of engagement in space for decades to come," Cutler said. "That leadership must come from the United States."

How China's moon plans and NASA's Artemis program progress going forward is going to be one of the most keenly followed and possibly consequential space events for decades, potentially reshaping dynamics on the Earth and moon.

"Amit has spent more than two decades as a dedicated public servant at NASA, working to advance American leadership in space. Under his leadership, the agency will chart a bold vision to return to the moon during President Trump's term," Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said in a statement on Wednesday (Sept. 3) that announced the selection.

"Amit's knowledge, integrity, and unwavering commitment to pioneering a new era of exploration make him uniquely qualified to lead our agency as associate administrator," he added. "With Amit, we'll continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible."

Kshatriya was born in Wisconsin to first-generation Indian immigrants. He earned a bachelor's degree in math from the California Institute of Technology and a master's in the same subject from the University of Texas at Austin.

Kshatriya has held a number of jobs at NASA since joining the agency in 2003, including software engineer and spacecraft operator. He was flight director for the International Space Station (ISS) from 2014 to 2017, then moved to the ISS Vehicle Office, where he served as deputy and acting manager.

In 2021, Kshatriya was assigned to the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD) at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. He became deputy associate administrator for ESDMD's Moon to Mars Program.

"In that role, Kshatriya was responsible for program planning and implementation for human missions to the moon and Mars," Kshatriya's NASA biography states. "He directed and led the programs to ensure Artemis and Mars planning, development, and operations were consistent with ESDMD requirements, and served as the single point of focus for risk management."

The NASA associate administrator is the highest-ranking civil servant (as opposed to political appointee) at the agency.

In this role, Kshatriya oversees the directors of NASA's 10 research centers and the leaders of the agency's mission directorates in Washington, D.C. He also acts as NASA's chief operating officer and serves as a senior advisor to Duffy, according to Kshatriya's NASA biography.

Kshatriya takes over from Vanessa Wyche, the director of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, who had been serving in an acting capacity since February of this year.

Committee Chairman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) opened the Sept. 3 hearing, titled "There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise," by warning that the United States risks losing the moon to China if NASA’s Artemis program falters. The hearing centered on how America can stay ahead in the new space race, with lawmakers pressing the importance of Artemis and reaffirming the need for the Gateway space station and to maintain continuous operations in low Earth orbit (LEO).

Witnesses underscored that delays, budget uncertainty, or wavering commitments could undermine both U.S. industry and international alliances, warning that uncertainty could drive partners and suppliers toward China’s accelerating lunar mission technologies.

Experts invited to testify included former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine; Allen Cutler, president and CEO of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration; Mike Gold, president of civil and international space at Redwire; and former Deputy Commander of the U.S. Space Command Lt. Gen. John Shaw.

These witnesses pointed to China’s recent progress, including a crew vehicle abort-system test in June, a Long March 10 rocket static fire in August, and a moon lander demonstration, as evidence of a systematic push toward the lunar surface.

"The countries that get there first will write the rules of the road for what we can do on the moon," Gold said during the hearing. Other witnesses also emphasized this point — the nation that establishes a presence on the lunar surface first will set the rules of engagement for resources, governance, and international partnerships back on Earth.

One of the advantages China holds over the U.S., the witnesses say, is its government's consistent uniformity and clarity of purpose for its lunar mission architecture. "The Chinese Communist Party is already employing its own integrated grand strategy for the Earth-moon system," Shaw said.

"Getting cast to and fro from one administration to the next has been very damaging over time, and that's the challenge with NASA," Bridenstine added. "What we do is multi-decadal in nature, and sometimes it's multi-generational, and you can't just have it go back and forth."

NASA's Artemis program was repeatedly stressed as the centerpiece of America's space exploration efforts, built around the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule — the only human-rated super heavy rocket and deep-space crew vehicle currently flying.

Artemis 2, the first crewed mission to fly around the moon since the Apollo era, is slated to launch early next year, but witnesses noted that the U.S. still lacks a finalized lunar lander to support Artemis 3.

SLS hardware for missions through Artemis 9 is already in production. To actually land on the moon, however, NASA is relying on SpaceX’s Starship as its contracted Human Landing System. While its most recent test flight on Aug. 26 was hailed a total success, Starship's development has slowed over the past year, and it has a long way to go before landing astronauts on the moon. The vehicle must prove its yet untested in-orbit refueling capability and land at least one uncrewed mission on the moon before NASA's 2027 target for Artemis 3.

Bridenstine cautioned that the fragile and SpaceX-reliant infrastructure for mission success makes the current U.S. design vulnerable, citing the work remaining to get Starship operational and the need for "up to dozens" of refueling launches in order to complete each of its missions to the lunar surface. "Unless something changes, it is highly unlikely the United States will beat China’s projected timeline," he said.

Gateway — the Artemis program's pitstop space station in lunar orbit — has had a bumpy path inside the program's architecture. At times it has been scrutinized, scaled back, or delayed. It was canceled in the president's 2026 budget proposal, but Congress added Gateway funding back into the mix to the tune of $750 million per year, through fiscal year 2028. Though the bill is yet to be finalized, the orbital station is cast as the linchpin of sustainable exploration to enable longer stays, partner investment and cislunar monitoring.

"Over 60% of the Gateway's costs are being borne by our international partners, representing billions that have already been spent building hardware" Gold explained. "Turning away from Gateway now would squander this unprecedented global investment in Artemis and force our international allies to seek partnerships with America's geopolitical rivals," he said.

"Conversely, if NASA reaffirms its commitment to Gateway, we can unlock billions of dollars of additional international investments, creating even more robust capabilities for Artemis, along with a windfall for the American taxpayer," Gold said.

Witnesses and lawmakers wrestled with NASA’s budget priorities, highlighting concern that the administration’s 2026 budget request tilts heavily toward exploration while slashing science programs. That chopping block includes planetary defense missions such as OSIRIS-APEX, heliophysics research, major Earth science and climate missions and major cuts to workforce at NASA centers like Armstrong, Marshall, and Goddard.

Proponents say that Artemis is an economic engine, with NASA estimating that every $1 invested returns about $3 to the U.S. economy. "There are 2,700 suppliers that are part of the Artemis program," Cutler said. "That covers everything from small mom and pop shops making valves, nuts, washers and all the way up."

The tension underscored the committee’s dilemma to preserve momentum in NASA's moon-to-Mars efforts without hollowing out the scientific missions that underpin NASA’s credibility and broad political support.

Cutler warned that preemptive slowdowns are already rattling suppliers, saying, "We need people working on Artemis — not working on their resumes." He noted that uncertainty is especially damaging to small businesses that cannot weather contract disruptions, and that cutting momentum now risks gutting Artemis' industrial pipeline just as China is scaling up its own.

Committee members and witnesses also linked NASA's success to the continued operation of the International Space Station (ISS) and the agency's efforts to utilize commercial space stations once the ISS is decommissioned sometime after 2030.

"This is a pivotal moment for our nation's space program," Cruz told hearing attendees. "America must maintain leadership in low Earth orbit while also embarking on a new era of exploration with Artemis."

Gold cautioned that, without continued funding and near-term action, the number of U.S. astronauts aboard the ISS could fall from four at any one time to three to two. "For the first time in history, there will be more Chinese astronauts in space than Americans," Gold warned, calling the prospect unacceptable.

Like the flocking of economic interests to China should they beat the U.S. to the moon, Bridenstine argued that failing to maintain a robust presence in LEO would not only weaken our country's operations in space but also drive international partners toward China’s Tiangong space station and away from U.S. interests.

Shaw pressed for a broader national strategy that unifies civil, commercial and defensive space efforts. "I am an advocate for and a champion of a unified grand space strategy for our nation, for the Earth-moon system and beyond. Yet such a grand strategy, which would unify and synergize our national efforts across civil, commercial and national security activities in pursuit of common goals, opportunities and capabilities, does not currently exist," he said.

Such a strategy, Shaw said, would set clear goals for America's framework for an eventual crewed mission to Mars, by establishing clear guideposts for progress in areas like nuclear power, cislunar communications and space domain awareness, creating new commercial opportunities and avoiding fragmented efforts.

The outcome of the new space race, lawmakers say, has the potential to shape international policies and alliances, and the economic landscape of the globe for decades to come. "If [China] get[s to the moon] first, we will see a global realignment that will impact our economy, our tax base, our ability to innovate, and our national security," Gold warned.

The hearing ended with an urgency illustrated in Cruz's first remarks: "If our adversaries achieve dominant space capabilities, it would pose a profound risk to America."

The next astronauts to travel around the moon seem plenty fit to make the trip.

The four astronauts who will fly on NASA's Artemis 2 mission recently passed the "Bobby and Pete Challenge," performing 50 pull-ups and 100 pushups in less than 10 minutes.

The quartet — NASA's Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Reid Wiseman, and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency — chronicled their achievement in a 50-second video, which NASA posted on X on Aug. 29.

The Bobby and Pete Challenge takes its name from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who popularized the viral fitness test in an Aug. 18 video.

Toward the end of that video, Kennedy passes the challenge along to Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, who's also the Secretary of Transportation, as well as a former champion lumberjack and reality TV star. And it was Duffy who got the Artemis 2 astronauts involved.

"Secretary Duffy, your Artemis 2 crew accepts the challenge," Wiseman says at the beginning of the Aug. 29 X video, with his three crewmates joining on the final three words. (Wiseman is the Artemis 2 commander, Glover is the pilot, and Koch and Hansen are mission specialists.)

We then see clips of the four astronauts doing pushups and pull-ups, powering through the challenge sweaty and out of breath, but ultimately triumphant. And they end by paying the pain forward.

"We want Zena [Cardman], Mike [Fincke] and Jonny Kim on the International Space Station to compete and crush our times," Wiseman says in the video, referring to the three NASA astronauts currently living on the ISS. (We don't know what those times are; the video doesn't give that information.)

As its name makes clear, Artemis 2 will be the second mission in NASA's Artemis program of moon exploration. Artemis 1 launched in November 2022, successfully sending an uncrewed Orion capsule to lunar orbit and back to Earth.

The roughly 10-day Artemis 2 is expected to launch between February and April of 2026, sending Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen on a slingshot trip around the moon. They won't land on Earth's nearest neighbor, but Artemis 3, targeted for 2027, will do so, if all goes to plan.

Fitness is a big part of the training regimen for all astronauts, whether they're bound for Earth orbit, the moon or beyond. And the work continues off planet as well; astronauts living on the ISS exercise hard every day to stave off the bone loss and muscle wasting that long stays in microgravity induce.

At the U.S. Army National Guard's High-Altitude Army Aviation Training Site (HAATS) in Gypsum, Colorado, astronauts are flying in military helicopters with Guard instructors to simulate the disorienting challenges of landing on the moon's complex surface, where deep craters, steep slopes and harsh lighting make navigation difficult.

That's because the Rocky Mountains provide a close match for lunar descent conditions. At altitudes between 6,500 and 14,200 feet (1,981 and 4,328 meters), helicopters are forced to operate at the edge of their limits, demanding precise control and quick decision-making. Snow, glare and dust-like whiteouts add to the difficulty, training pilots and astronauts to rely on their instruments, teamwork and communication — just as they will when landing near the moon's south pole, according to a statement from NASA.

“Over the last few years, NASA and the Army National Guard have worked closely to evaluate training procedures and landing zone areas, incorporating accounts from Apollo astronauts," NASA astronaut Doug Wheelock, who helped coordinate the training program, said in the statement. "During training flights at HAATS, astronauts can experience the visual illusions, cross-cockpit communication, and degraded visibility they may experience navigating to their landing zone near the lunar south pole. Flight training opportunities like this are vital to mission success and crew safety."

Since 2021, 22 NASA astronauts and one European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut have completed the HAATS program. Pilots Bob Hines and Raja Chari are among those who practiced managing low-visibility approaches and honing cross-cockpit communication.

The NASA-specific course, which is expected to be finalized this month, blends Apollo-era lessons with the expertise of National Guard instructors who specialize in high-altitude helicopter operations. This mountain-based training is one part of NASA's broader Artemis preparation that also includes full-motion simulators and dedicated lunar lander mockups.

"NASA is using a three-pronged approach with motion-based simulation, in-flight lunar landing analog training, and in-flight lunar simulation to build out its foundational training for Artemis moon landings," Wheelock, who helped coordinate the training program, said.

However, at HAATS, astronauts get first-hand exposure to extreme flying and landing conditions, and learn in real-time how to manage uncertainty, power limits and rapidly changing visuals during descent.

For each mission simulation, one astronaut pilots the aircraft while another charts the landing area, marking key landmarks, identifying potential hazards and helping to track the flight path. The landing zones and situations become more challenging throughout the week-long course, pushing crews to strengthen communication and practice decision-making skills they will need to land on the moon.

The first crewed Artemis lunar landing, Artemis III, is now targeted for no earlier than 2027. Until then, the rocky slopes of Colorado will continue to serve as a training ground, preparing astronauts for the daunting descent to the moon.

NASA has opened a new complex in the Mission Control Center at its Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston ahead of the Artemis 2 mission to send astronauts around the moon aboard the Orion space capsule — the vehicle's first-ever crewed flight test. JSC's new Mission Evaluation Room (MER) will provide behind-the-scenes, in-depth data analyses of Orion to augment the in-flight operations coordinated inside the main White Flight Control Room (WFCR).

The new facility, which opened Aug. 15, will act as Orion's engineering brain trust, with 24 console stations set to be staffed 24/7 during the roughly 10-day long duration of the Artemis 2 mission with people from NASA, Lockheed Martin, the European Space Agency (ESA) and Airbus — all responsible for different parts of the spacecraft's manufacturing. MER will be crucial to monitoring the breadth of Orion's systems and ensuring the spacecraft and crew's safety around the moon, in the event of an unexpected event, according to a NASA update.

The job of those working MER's data display monitors will be to compare real-time data with Orion's expected performance, and to troubleshoot any issues that may arise. While those inside the WFCR are responsible for flight operations, engineers inside MER will be tasked with digging into the numbers to diagnose problems and help provide solutions.

Beyond solving hiccups in real time, MER aims to capture detailed mission data that feeds into planning for Artemis 3 and beyond. "Data collection is hugely significant," Trey Perryman, JSC's lead for Orion Mission and Integration Systems, said in the NASA statement.

"The operations team is flying the spacecraft, but they are relying on the Mission Evaluation Room’s reachback engineering capability from the NASA, industry and international Orion team that has designed, built and tested this spacecraft,” Perryman said.

Orion, as well as NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket sending it to space, are measurable steps forward compared to technology utilized during the agency's Apollo program. In addition to the redundancy MER offers for spacecraft safety during deep-space missions, it is also a representation of the leap in technology from humanity's last journey to the moon in 1972 and now — requiring the cooperation of international hardware and contractors as well as organizations in and outside the private sector to centralize a coordinated expertise.

With MER now in place, NASA's Mission Control is effectively a two-room operation: one to fly Orion and another to monitor its health. Artemis 2 will be the first test of that partnership, setting the standard for Artemis 3 and beyond.

With Artemis 3, NASA plans to land astronauts on the moon for the first time since Apollo 17. Future missions in the Artemis program aim to create a sustained presence on the lunar surface as a staging ground for eventual crewed missions to Mars.

NASA is currently targeting no earlier than February 2026 for Artemis 2, with a mission window open through April. NASA has selected astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen as the Artemis 2 crew. If that mission is deemed a success, NASA hopes to launch Artemis 3 sometime in 2027.

The 2025 class of NASA astronaut candidates will be announced Sept. 22 during a livestreamed event at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston that begins at 12:30 p.m. EDT (1630 GMT; 11:30 a.m. local time in Houston).

You can catch coverage of the event on NASA+, Netflix, Amazon Prime, NASA's YouTube channel, and the agency's X account. Space.com will also simulcast the event, if NASA makes its stream available.

The selectees were narrowed down from a field of 8,000 applicants. The new astronaut candidates will next undergo roughly two years of training at NASA before being certified as full astronauts, eligible for future missions.

NASA also plans to host several media briefings on Sept. 23 and Sept. 24 to discuss the Artemis 2 mission that will send four astronauts around the moon no earlier than April 2026. These events will stream live on NASA's YouTube channel and X account (as well as at Space.com, if possible).

On board Artemis 2 will be NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman (commander), Victor Glover (pilot) and Christina Koch (mission specialist), and Canadian Space Agency astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen. Glover will be the first Black astronaut ever to fly a moon mission, while Koch will be the first woman and Hansen the first non-American.

Here are the scheduled briefings for Artemis 2:

Tuesday, Sept. 23:

11 a.m. EDT (10 a.m. local time, 1500 GMT): Mission overview briefing with the following participants

• Lakiesha Hawkins, acting deputy associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
• Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis launch director, NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida
• Judd Frieling, lead Artemis 2 ascent flight director, NASA Johnson
• Jeff Radigan, lead Artemis 2 flight director, NASA Johnson
• Rick Henfling, lead Artemis 2 entry flight director, NASA Johnson
• Daniel Florez, test director, Exploration Ground Systems, NASA Kennedy

1 p.m. EDT (12 p.m. local time, 1700 GMT): Artemis 2 science and technology briefing with the following participants:

• Matt Ramsey, Artemis 2 mission manager, NASA Headquarters
• Debbie Korth, deputy Orion Program manager, NASA Johnson
• Jacob Bleacher, manager, Science, Technology Utilization, and Integration, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
• Mark Clampin, acting deputy associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters

Wednesday, Sept. 24

10 a.m. EDT (12 p.m. local time, 1400 GMT): Artemis 2 crew news conference featuring:

• Reid Wiseman, commander
• Victor Glover, pilot
• Christina Koch, mission specialist
• Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist

The next astronauts headed to the moon are preparing for all contingencies as their mission approaches, and they recently completed a nighttime rehearsal of launch procedures.

NASA's Artemis 2 mission — the first-ever crewed mission of the Orion capsule and Space Launch System (SLS) — is targeting a liftoff between February and April of 2026. Aboard Orion will be NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

The quartet will fly Orion on a journey around the moon, looping around the natural satellite and slingshotting back to Earth on a "free-return" trajectory. The Artemis 2 crew practiced nighttime launch protocols during a recent dress rehearsal at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, during which they donned their spacesuits to review emergency egress procedures on the launch tower.

Beginning on Aug. 12, the Artemis 2 astronauts spent about two nights going through the motions of putting on their spacesuits inside KSC's Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building (O&C), for different launch day scenarios around the Launch Complex-39B (LC-39B) pad and nearby Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), where the Artemis 2 SLS rocket is currently being stacked on its mobile launcher.

One exercise had the crew run through a launch scrub sequence, driving the 9 miles (14.5 kilometers) from O&C to LC-39B, and then back to O&C to gauge routes, communications and timing.

The Artemis 2 crew also practiced emergency egress procedures in the VAB's High Bay 3, the site of the SLS stacking.

In the event of a launch day emergency in which the Artemis 2 crew is already inside Orion or near the top of the launch tower, a rapid exit that puts as much distance as possible between the rocket and the astronauts is necessary to ensure their safety. In these cases, crews board cable trolley baskets secured at the top of the mobile launch platform (MLP), which transport them to the perimeter of LC-39B's "pad terminus area," according to a NASA blog post.

Those baskets are currently on the floor of the VAB, where the MLP and SLS are also currently being housed  —  about 3 miles (5 km) from LC-39B. To complete their emergency egress simulation, the astronauts traveled between both sites.

Moving from O&C to the VAB in full spacesuit attire, the Artemis 2 astronauts ascended the MLP tower to the White Room, the connection area at the end of the MLP crew access arm that opens to Orion's hatch. Back on the VAB floor, the crew practiced entering and exiting the emergency egress baskets.

From there, the crew were transported to the LC-39B perimeter, where the baskets would carry them during an actual launch day emergency. Whisked inside armored response vehicles, the Artemis 2 crew were then driven to predetermined safe zones around KSC before the test was concluded.

Last week's nighttime dress rehearsal closely mirrors a daytime run-through that the crew completed in 2023. Since then, their mission has been delayed several times, kicking the goal post from 2024 to its current NET (no earlier than) date of February 2026 (though the crew says April is more likely).

NASA released highlights from the most recent launch day simulation, following the crew from suit-up, transport, ascent and descent of the launch tower to the cable baskets, and out to the launch pad. That full video is available below:

NASA's first Artemis mission launched an uncrewed Orion on a month-long mission to lunar orbit at the end of 2022. Damage to Orion's heat shield after reentry through Earth's atmosphere and other issues have delayed the program's second mission to 2026.

Artemis 3 is slated to fly NET 2027 and will be the first mission to land astronauts back on the surface of the moon since the end of the Apollo era more than 50 years ago. NASA has tapped SpaceX's Starship rocket as that mission's lunar lander. Starship is facing development delays of its own, threatening further delays if the vehicle isn't ready on NASA's timeline.

The Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) announced the arrival of the K-RadCube in Florida on Aug. 13 via the social media platform X. The milestone comes as preparations for NASA's Artemis 2 mission build. The 10-day mission will send four astronauts around the moon aboard the Orion spacecraft, with launch currently scheduled for no earlier than February 2026, and no later than April 2026.

K-RadCube, a three-unit, 41-pound (19 kilograms) cubesat, will use a dosimeter made of material designed to mimic human tissue to measure space radiation levels across the Van Allen radiation belts. It aims to collect data on radiation exposure levels that astronauts may face when traveling beyond Earth orbit.

The cubesat also carries semiconductor components such as chips from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to assess their radiation resistance in a deep-space environment. The data will also be used to inform future missions.

South Korea's KASA is just one international space agency that will fly cubesats on the mission; Germany's DLR will also contribute its TACHELES cubesat. While Artemis 2 will send astronauts around the moon, the cubesats will have their own science objectives.

K-RadCube will — along with the other cubesat payloads joining for the ride — be released from the adapter that connects the Orion crewed spacecraft to the upper stage of the Space Launch System rocket in high Earth orbit once Orion is free and clear of the upper stage.

As well as piggybacking on Artemis 2, South Korea has its own moon objectives. It aims to put a robotic lander on the moon by 2032 and wants to build a moon base by 2045.

Preparations for Artemis 2 are gathering momentum. Earlier this month, the Orion spacecraft completed propellant loading at KSC and will next be outfitted with its emergency escape system.