NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced a significant overhaul of the Artemis program on Friday, pushing the first crewed moon landing to 2028 and adding a new preparatory mission to address safety concerns and technical challenges. The decision, revealed in a press conference, comes after a critical report from the agency’s independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel and recent setbacks with the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
The revised plan will include an additional flight in 2027, during which astronauts will dock with commercial moon landers in low-Earth orbit. This mission will focus on testing critical systems – navigation, communications, propulsion, and life support – and validating rendezvous procedures, according to Isaacman. Following this, NASA anticipates at least one, and potentially two, lunar landing missions in 2028.
“We’re going to receive there in steps, continue to take down risk as we learn more and we roll that information into subsequent designs,” Isaacman told CBS News. “We’ve got to get back to basics.”
The shift in strategy follows a period of delays and technical issues. Earlier this week, the SLS rocket, intended for the Artemis II mission, was returned to its Florida hangar for repairs after engineers discovered a blockage in the helium flow system. This followed a previous setback in February when a hydrogen leak forced NASA to postpone the Artemis II launch, which had already been delayed from its initial timeline. The Artemis II mission, designed to send four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the moon, now has an earliest launch window of April 1st.
The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel’s report, released earlier this week, deemed the original Artemis III plans too risky, citing the number of “firsts” required for the mission. The panel recommended that NASA “restructure” the program to create a more balanced risk posture, a sentiment Isaacman acknowledged. “It is intriguing that a lot of the things that we are addressing directly head to the points they raised in their report,” he said.
The Artemis III mission will now be reconfigured as a low-Earth orbit flight focused on testing essential technologies. This change represents a major departure from the original goal of landing astronauts on the moon in 2027, a target that had been pursued for years. NASA now aims for crewed lunar landings with Artemis IV and Artemis V in 2028, with the potential for annual moonshots thereafter. The agency intends to land astronauts near the moon’s south pole.
Isaacman drew a parallel to the original Apollo program, noting that the first human moon landing in 1969 was preceded by three separate unmanned missions. The revised Artemis program seeks to adopt a similar incremental approach, prioritizing safety and risk reduction.
