The POT has announced a profound remodeling of the program Artemis which includes an increased pace of launches and the cancellation of the rocket’s expensive new upper stage SLS (Space Launch System) in development. The plan is still to put humans back on the lunar surface in 2028, but now consider that a mission will need to be added in 2027.
The new design of the program has been exposed by Jared Isaacmanrecent new NASA administrator, at a press conference this Friday and reconfigures the missions Artemis III and Artemis IVin addition to implying the abandonment of the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) of Boeing and move to an annual cadence of releases.
‘Right now our program is basically planned as Apollo 8 and then go directly to the Moon (Apollo 11). That is not a path to success,’ Isaacman said at the press conference.
The announcement comes after the latest Artemis II setback, a helium leak in the SLS upper stage detected last week that has forced the rocket to be returned to the Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building to carry out repairs and forget about the launch window scheduled for March. This follows the cancellation of the launch in February following fuel leaks during the launch’s dress rehearsal, which includes filling the tanks.
NASA will increase the cadence of the Artemis missions to successfully return humans to the Moon and sustain a lunar presence.
Artemis III will test systems in low Earth orbit to prepare for an Artemis IV Moon landing in 2028. https://t.co/TovtCfQXzfpic.twitter.com/WFrTdacerY
— NASA (@NASA) February 27, 2026
Artemis’s low pitch rate
According to Isaacman, the changes in Artemis will allow NASA to rebuild its staff and restore essential capabilities before attempting a moon landing. The main concern of the agency administrator is the low flight rate of the SLS rocket and the Artemis missions. In previous space programs, from Mercury until Gemini, Apollo and the Space shuttleNASA has launched astronauts approximately once every three months on average. They have almost passed 3 and a half years since the launch of Artemis I.
Delving into this question, a NASA official has told Ars Technica that ‘the time between Apollo 7 and Apollo 8 was nine weeks. Releasing the SLS every three and a half years or so is not a formula for success. Certainly turning each of them into a work of art with some major configuration change doesn’t help the process either, and we’re clearly seeing the results, right?’
Consequently, the objective is standardize the SLS rocket into a single configuration to make it as reliable as possible and to be able to launch it with a frequency of up to 10 months. Artemis II and III will still employ the current SLS upper stage, while subsequent missions, starting in 2028, will use another ‘standardized’ one. NASA will continue with the SLS rocket, which carries the crew capsule Orionuntil there are commercial alternatives to launch astronauts to the Moon.
Artemis’s changes
NASA has announced several important changes to the Artemis program schedule, highlighting the incorporation of a new step between the upcoming Artemis II mission, which will send astronauts to fly over the Moonand the future mission to land humans on the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years.
Originally, NASA planned to land astronauts on the moon with Artemis III. It was planned for 2026, but the numerous delays of the program had postponed it until 2028. The date for the moon landing is maintained, only It will not be with that mission but with Artemis IV.
Artemis III is brought forward to 2027 and will focus on testing Orion’s ability to dock in low Earth orbit with a lunar landing module manufactured by SpaceX or Blue Origin. It is still a manned mission.
Add this extra step to Artemis It aligns it more with the progression that the Apollo program had. In 1969, the mission Apollo 9ten days, tested a docking between the team’s command module and the lunar module in low Earth orbit, months before Apollo 11 managed to land on the moon.
As Ars Technica explains, this extra step will significantly reduce the risks of a moon landingby allowing the NASA team to test the handling of the lunar module, the rendezvous and docking process of the two spacecraft, communications, the performance of the spacesuits and more.
Despite the additional steps, NASA hopes to maintain an agile pace that still allows its astronauts to return to the Moon before other space-capable nations take theirs. China plans to step on the Moon in 2030.
‘If you want historical data, look at the period between the landing of Apollo 7 and the launch of Apollo 8there are approximately two months difference. We have to go back to basics and move in this direction. We’re going to strive to get releases a year apart. Specifically, potentially going down to ten months,’ Isaacman said.