NASA has announced it has overhauled plans for its Artemis program, dramatically changing the mission objectives for Artemis III and shifting the planned lunar landing to Artemis IV.
During a press conference, Administrator Jared Isaacman announced NASA’s new plan for the future of America’s space program. The major change came in the form of Artemis III, which on top of being moved up to mid-2027, will now serve as a test mission for the upcoming lunar landers being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin.
The new plan is for a crew of astronauts to rendezvous with one or both of the landers in low-Earth orbit. Here, they will perform tests of all the systems necessary to land humans safely on the moon.
Following this, NASA plans to launch Artemis IV in early 2028. This mission will aim to return humans to the surface of the moon in one of the landers tested during Artemis III.
These changes to NASA’s flagship program come amid continued delays to Artemis II, which was originally planned to launch in early February, but has now been pushed to no earlier than April 1.
They also come as serious questions are raised about the long-term feasibility of the Artemis plan. As astute observers have noted for years now, there are several major contradictions regarding the timeline of the old Artemis program.
During the press conference, Isaacman repeatedly stressed the need to increase NASA’s launch cadence, or how quickly the administration can launch rockets. “We’ve got issues with low flight rate,” Isaacman said. “Launching a rocket as important and complex as SLS every three years is not a path to success.”
He added, “Artemis III right now as it’s currently designed won’t fly for approximately another three years.”
If this is true, it would drastically raise the risk of China returning humans to the moon before the United States, something which could undermine its geopolitical position as the world’s premier technological power.
This could have dramatic consequences for the United States going forward. It will be hard to argue technological superiority when our main rival is moving faster than us.
Because of this, Isaacman made clear these changes came alongside plans to overhaul NASA’s internal processes, paving the way for faster mission turnaround.
The goal, according to Isaacman, is to launch the SLS every ten months, a substantial increase from today’s three-year cadence. In order to achieve this, the SLS will be standardized.
Currently, the plan calls for each mission to bring an upgrade to SLS. This means a larger second stage on one mission, new boosters on the next. All of these changes will take time to implement. Isaacman made clear that part of the plan to increase launch cadence would be to create a standardized, “near-Block 1” version of SLS which will function for the foreseeable future.
Part of these changes required a solution to a currency problem, the upper stage. Currently, SLS flies with the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS), but as the name suggests this was always meant to be upgraded. Enter the planned Exploration Upper Stage (EUS), which has faced many delays and budget overruns.
While details on the replacement plan are sparse, a graphic released by NASA shortly after the press conference seems to indicate they intend to use a Centaur V upper stage, the same upper stage currently flying on ULA’s Vulcan rocket.
This seems to be the right direction. After all, the Centaur family of upper stages has been flying since the 1960s and the design is well understood. Furthermore, on two of Vulcan’s recent test flights, the first stage boosters experienced anomalies, causing them to have a reduction in capability.
The Centaur V attached to both rockets was able to make up for this lack of performance, and safely ensured both payloads made it to orbit. The continued inclusion of ULA (the designers of both the ICPS and Centaur V) is likely to ensure political support for these changes, as no one is getting cut out.
Overall, these plans mark a positive change for the Artemis program. They show the agency is serious about achieving its goal of returning humans to the moon, and they are taking the required steps to get there.
As Isaacman explained, NASA did not jump straight from Apollo 8 to Apollo 11. They had Apollo 9 and 10 to test systems and ensure the landing went as well as possible. That is what NASA is doing now.
By not skipping steps, they are ensuring the highest chance of mission success.