What’s next for NASA’s return to moon after Artemis II

NASA’s 10-day Artemis II mission to fly around the moon safely splashed down off the San Diego coast Friday, marking the end of humanity’s first flight to the moon in over 50 years.

The new NASA administrator, born over a decade after the last Apollo mission, immediately made it clear he intends the gap between Artemis II and the agency’s next moon mission to be much, much shorter.

“You hear sometimes around here, ‘this is a once in a lifetime’ — no its not,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said aboard a recovery vessel out in the Pacific, moments after the crew splashed down. “This is just the beginning, we are going to get back into doing on this with frequency, sending missions to the moon until we land on it in 2028 and start building our base.”

Here’s how the U.S. space agency hopes to do it.

NASA’s vision for the moon

A week before Artemis II launched, NASA outlined its ambitious new plan for creating a sustained presence on the moon, which can serve as a testing ground for eventual missions to Mars.

Most notably, the agency scrapped long-standing plans to build a space station orbiting the moon, called Gateway. Instead, it would focus on building a base on the lunar surface.

“I think we’d rather be on the surface where a lot of the learning’s going to take place, where we can … build the skills, test the technology, the capabilities we’re going to need some day if we actually go to Mars and want to bring our astronauts home to talk about it,” Isaacman said in an interview with the publication NASASpaceflight.

“It’s not like you’re just going to be on Gateway looking down,” he added. “You’re going to probably be looking down on another country’s astronauts.”

The space agency’s Artemis program is designed to make the moon base vision a reality.

The next Artemis missions

The next Artemis mission is slated for 2027. Artemis III will stick in near-Earth orbit — closer to where the International Space Station sits as opposed to traveling into deep space like Artemis II.

Around Earth, the agency plans to test docking procedures between its Orion spacecraft and the lunar landers that will carry astronauts from the moon’s orbit down to its surface. To build these landers, it tapped the private space companies Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, and SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk.

Then, in early 2028, it intends to launch Artemis IV. The Orion spacecraft will carry astronauts to the moon’s orbit, and a lunar lander will take two of them down to the moon’s south pole, where they will spend a week conducting science.

Artemis V and beyond will aim to accelerate the cadence of lunar landings to one every six months and continue to test technology to make lunar landings easier and cheaper.

Lessons from Artemis II

Artemis II focused on putting the Orion spacecraft through its paces — primarily by testing its life support systems and piloting the spacecraft for the first time. For example, the crew dealt with multiple issues with their space toilet.

NASA also used the mission as an opportunity to study Orion’s troubled heat shield, which unexpectedly chipped in more than 100 spots on the uncrewed Artemis I test mission in 2022. By using a new reentry trajectory, Isaacman said that “no unexpected conditions were observed” in initial assessments.

However, the Orion spacecraft experienced issues with helium valves on Orion’s propulsion system, which helps the crew navigate in space. Ahead of launch, NASA noticed helium leaking in the system but determined, since Artemis II has a much simpler trajectory than future missions, the leaking wouldn’t significantly affect the mission.

In space, the leaking worsened, ultimately convincing NASA it would have to redesign the system for future missions.

Beyond the technical objectives of Artemis II, NASA officials were particularly pleased with the public response to the mission and the astronauts’ ability to connect with the public.

The lunar flyby is already NASA’s most viewed live broadcast on YouTube with more than 27 million views. Artemis II’s launch and splashdown are also within the top five most viewed broadcasts.

In space, the astronauts spoke eloquently of the surreal sights of the moon and their deep love for our home planet.

“I would suggest to you that when you look up here, you’re not looking at us,” said Canadian Space Agency astronaut and Artemis II mission specialist astronaut Jeremy Hansen, back in Houston Saturday. “We are a mirror reflecting you. And if you like what you see, then just look a little deeper. This is you.”

The hurdles to Artemis III

NASA is already building its next high-power rocket to launch the Artemis III Orion spacecraft. The agency plans to ship the massive orange core stage for the rocket from New Orleans to Florida this month. The Orion spacecraft’s main two sections are already at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center along the Florida coast.

A redesigned heat shield, aimed at addressing the root cause of the unexpected damage during Artemis I, is already built. However, the agency is not yet sure whether it will be able to fix the faulty Orion propulsion system, built in Germany by the European Space Agency, in Florida or if NASA will have to ship it back across the Atlantic.

And neither SpaceX nor Blue Origin have tested their landers in space yet. A NASA audit last month found that “both SpaceX and Blue Origin have experienced schedule delays and face technical and integration challenges that have the potential to further impact lander costs and delivery schedules.”

Yet, NASA remains steadfast on its 2027 launch timeline. The agency promised to announce the Artemis III crew “soon.”