Space News Deep Dive: The Artemis Shake-Up

Article February 28, 2026

Yikes, is anyone else getting Project Artemis whiplash? In the same week that we learned that the SLS rocket due to carry the Artemis 2 crew into space on their mission to fly around the Moon had to be rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs (and there’s just something kind of depressing about seeing a rocket roll into the VAB), we also learned that the slate of future missions is getting a significant shake-up.

Artemis 1 was an uncrewed test launch of the SLS rocket and Orion capsule in 2022. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Artemis 1 was an uncrewed test launch of the SLS rocket and Orion capsule in 2022. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

If I’m being completely honest, I feel like the change in the Artemis mission lineups announced on Friday February 27th is a change for the better. It’s more in line with NASA’s usual optimistic-but-cautious approach and feels less like the space agency has a bad case of Go Fever (never a good thing, that’s how accidents happen). 

So let’s talk about what the changes are, what they mean for the program, and myself and so many other space nerds think this is a good idea.

 

Shaking Things Up

Here’s what the plan used to be. Artemis 2, currently eyeing an April launch date, will bring humans back to lunar space for the first time since 1972, swinging its crew of Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Jeremy Hansen around the Moon and back to Earth. Then Artemis 3 would, in 2028, actually land humans back on the Moon. That would be followed at some point by Artemis 4 and 5 which would do, well, lunar stuff. Landings. Maybe help build the Lunar Gateway space station. Maybe lay the foundation for a lunar outpost? Honestly plans were never super clear after Artemis 3.

The prototype for the new spacesuits designed to be worn on the Moon by Project Artemis astronauts. Credit: Axiom
The prototype for the new spacesuits designed to be worn on the Moon by Project Artemis astronauts. Credit: Axiom

But all that’s out the window. Well, okay, not all out the window. Artemis 2 is still going to fly as planned (you know, once it manages to get its rocket in shape to launch). And Artemis 4 and 5 are still going to be landings. The critical change is to Artemis 3’s mission profile.

Instead of being the first human lunar landing since Apollo 17 in December 1972, Artemis 3 will not be leaving Earth orbit. It will perform the first docking of the Orion crew capsule with the lunar lander that will ultimately carry humans to the Moon’s surface on future missions and will likely also include an EVA of some sort that will put the newly designed Artemis spacesuits through their paces. 

That flight is now scheduled to occur in mid-2027. If everything goes smoothly, that moves Artemis 4 into place to carry out the crewed lunar landing sometime in the first half of 2028. NASA has expressed the hope that, all continuing to go well, there could be a second lunar landing with Artemis 5 in the back half of 2028.

So the 2028 timeline for the lunar landing still exists, but now there’s a flight in the middle that returns us to Earth orbit. At first glance that sounds like a step backwards, but it actually makes a whole big bunch of sense.

 

Checking Ambitions

Here’s the thing: the old Artemis 3 mission profile was crazy. Insane. Absolutely nuts. And in this writer’s opinion it was never going to happen, not the way it was scripted. Because as planned out on paper Artemis 3 had way too many firsts happening at once.

It was going to be the first time the Orion crew capsule docked with a lunar lander. It was going to be the first time that lunar lander was flown by humans. It was going to be the first time lives depended on the performance of those new Artemis spacesuits and the first time they saw vacuum. And all of these major, mission critical firsts (several of which could lead to loss of crew if they go wrong enough) would be happening in lunar orbit 240,000 miles from home and safety.

And, oh yeah, it will also be happening while we’re trying to land on the Moon. And not just any part of the Moon, but the lunar south pole, a place no humans have ever landed and where numerous robotic spacecraft have notably failed to land. 

The highlighted areas mark potential landing sites for the next NASA attempt at a crewed lunar landing, now slated for Artemis 4. Credit: NASA
The highlighted areas mark potential landing sites for the next NASA attempt at a crewed lunar landing, now slated for Artemis 4. Credit: NASA

The fact that the notoriously cautious NASA ever greenlit that as a mission profile speaks to how urgently the pressure is on for them to get American boots back on the Moon. That profile has so many dependencies that will have never been tested before they have to perform perfectly. Or, you know, people could die (and not land on the Moon, but I hope we can all agree that is secondary to the potential death).

The new Artemis 3 profile will allow several of those untested dependencies—the spacesuit performance, the docking between Orion and the lunar lander, the lunar lander carrying humans aboard—to be tested in Earth orbit. That has several advantages. For one thing, if anything goes wrong the astronauts can be back on Earth within hours.

Even aside from potentially life-threatening scenarios like suit failures needing quick access to Earth, imagine something as basic as the two spacecraft having docking issues. Going all the way to Earth orbit to have something like that fail would be a major bummer, but imagine it failing after you’ve gone all the way to the Moon and were prepping for a Moonwalk. 

An artist’s illustration of an Orion capsule breaking Earth orbit on its way to the Moon. Credit: NASA
An artist’s illustration of an Orion capsule breaking Earth orbit on its way to the Moon. Credit: NASA

There’s also upsides like Earth orbit having no time delay with ground communications (the time delay to the Moon is less than two seconds, but if there’s a crisis that’s not nothing) and both Orion and lunar lander will be well within Earth’s protective magnetic field for the duration of the tests, meaning radiation from solar flares are just one less thing to have to fret about.

And it means the next flight can happen in 2027 instead of 2028, reducing the amount of experience loss and atrophy between flights. It also opens up a little leeway when it comes to the lunar lander.

 

The Lander Question

Here’s an interesting point about the press conference in which this shakeup was announced: everyone from NASA referred to “the lander” or “the human landing system”. Nobody said Starship. That’s interesting.

Theoretically the lander for Artemis 3 and 4 under the old plan would have been SpaceX’s Starship. Only Starship has run into numerous issues in its flight tests and has yet to complete a full orbit. Meanwhile NASA has opened up the landing contract to give Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander, originally not contracted until maaaybe Artemis 5, a go at being the one to land first.

So now there’s a lander development race, but having one fully built, tested, and certified for human lunar landings by 2028 is going to be a big ask (there should be at least one full uncrewed dress rehearsal where each lander demonstrates its ability to land on the Moon and take off safely without people on board).

Artist’s renditions of the two human landing systems currently under development for Project Artemis, Starship (left) and Blue Moon (right). Credit: NASA
Artist’s renditions of the two human landing systems currently under development for Project Artemis, Starship (left) and Blue Moon (right). Credit: NASA

I have some doubts, personally, whether the 2028 date will hold for the human landings, because landing on the Moon isn’t easy and none of these proposed systems have been fully developed or tested and it’s 2026. But could one or both of these landers be cleared to support human life in Earth orbit, no landing required? Yeah, I could see that happening. It’s not a given, but it feels a lot more possible than having fully demonstrated landing capabilities by 2028.

And it would keep Project Artemis progressing. It would keep the manufacturers working on SLS rockets and Orion capsules. And maybe if the momentum is allowed to continue it will prove possible to do a landing in 2028 (two feels like it’s pushing it, but I want that to be what happens).

 

Looking Back to Look Ahead

It’s easy to feel like a return to Earth orbit isn’t the kind of we want Project Artemis to make. But it’s really just a case of looking at a past example that worked out very well. If you think of Artemis 2 as being like Apollo 8, a crewed flight around the Moon with no lunar lander, then it makes a lot of sense to turn Artemis 3 into the new Apollo 9.

One of the critical test flights that gets somewhat forgotten between the glories of Apollo 8 and Apollo 11, Apollo 9 was the first time the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) flew to space. The mission didn’t leave Earth orbit, but it ran the LM threw its paces, wrung it out, and declared it fit to be the vessel that carried humans to the lunar surface. Apollo 10 did something similar in lunar orbit. Justice for Apollo 9 and Apollo 10 is what I’m saying. 

On the Apollo 9 mission the first Lunar Module to fly, named Spider, undocked from the command module (named Gumdrop) with crew aboard and flew solo for a time, proving itself capable of safely carrying humans to the lunar surface. Credit: Dave Scott/NASA
On the Apollo 9 mission the first Lunar Module to fly, named Spider, undocked from the command module (named Gumdrop) with crew aboard and flew solo for a time, proving itself capable of safely carrying humans to the lunar surface. Credit: Dave Scott/NASA

And that’s not the only way NASA is hoping to recreate the successes of Apollo with Artemis. The first crewed Apollo flight, Apollo 7, happened in October 1968. Project Apollo wound up with Apollo 17 in December 1972. That’s 11 flights in four years, including six Moon landings! Under the old plan Artemis would have seen 3 flights in six years with a single Moon landing.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wants to return to the old Apollo days and have a launch every ten months or so. And that’s the kind of momentum you need to have if you want to carry out NASA’s admittedly grand intentions for the Moon, including a permanent surface outpost and a small space station, the Gateway, in orbit.

Because, lest we forget, the ultimate ambition for Artemis, its raison d’être, isn’t actually the Moon. That’s not the endgame. Artemis is meant to be the proving ground to help us figure out how to live on Mars. Mars is the actual goal. But first we have to show we can go back to the Moon. And it feels a lot more possible now that we’ll be able to do that.

Viva Artemis!