{"id":9604,"date":"2026-02-28T01:20:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T17:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-announces-major-overhaul-of-artemis-moon-program-weve-got-to-get-back-to-basics\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T01:20:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T17:20:37","slug":"nasa-announces-major-overhaul-of-artemis-moon-program-weve-got-to-get-back-to-basics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-announces-major-overhaul-of-artemis-moon-program-weve-got-to-get-back-to-basics\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA announces major overhaul of Artemis moon program: \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get back to basics\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Artist concept of a SpaceX Starship lunar lander on the surface of the moon. Image: SpaceX.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced a major overhaul of the agency\u2019s Artemis moon program Friday, acknowledging that the agency\u2019s plan to land astronauts on the moon in 2028 was not realistic without another preparatory mission first to lay the groundwork. <\/p>\n

He said NASA will now add an additional flight in 2027 in which astronauts will dock with new commercial moon landers in low-Earth orbit for detailed tests of navigation, communications, propulsion and life support systems, along with verifying rendezvous procedures.<\/p>\n

That flight, in turn, will be followed by at least one and possibly two lunar landing missions in 2028 that incorporate lessons learned from the preceding flight.<\/p>\n

The goal is to accelerate the pace of launches of the huge Space Launch System rocket while carrying out Artemis flights in evolutionary steps \u2014 not attempting missions that rely on too many untested technologies and procedures at once.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to get there in steps, continue to take down risk as we learn more and we roll that information into subsequent designs,\u201d Isaacman said told CBS News. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get back to basics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaacman outlined the plan in an interview with CBS News space contributor Christian Davenport and then again during a news conference Friday. <\/p>\n

The announcement came two days after release of a sharply-worded report from NASA\u2019s independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel that deemed the existing plans too risky.<\/p>\n

The panel raised concerns about the number of \u201cfirsts\u201d required by the original Artemis III moon landing mission and recommended that NASA \u201crestructure\u201d the program to create a more balanced risk posture.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is interesting that a lot of the things that we are addressing directly go to the points they raised in their report,\u201d Isaacman said Friday. \u201cI can\u2019t say we actually collaborated on it because I generally think these were all pretty obvious observations.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he told the panel \u201cwe are completely aligned, I agree with every one of the points that you raised.\u201d<\/p>\n

The revised Artemis architecture also comes as NASA has been struggling to launch the delayed Artemis II mission on a flight to send four astronauts on a trip around the moon.<\/p>\n

Launch had been planned for early February, but it was delayed to repair a hydrogen leak and, more recently, to give engineers time to fix a helium pressurization problem in the rocket\u2019s upper stage. Launch is now on hold until at least April 1.<\/p>\n

The Artemis III mission, which had been expected to land astronauts near the moon\u2019s south pole in 2028, now will be redefined and rescheduled \u2014 launching ahead of schedule in 2027 but not to the moon, Isaacman said.<\/p>\n

Instead, yet-to-be-named astronauts will rendezvous and dock in orbit closer to home with one or both of the commercially built lunar landers now under development at Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin.<\/p>\n

The idea is to gain valuable near-term flight experience before attempting a moon landing with astronauts on board. With Artemis III under its belt, NASA hopes to launch two moon landing missions in 2028, Artemis IV and V, using one or both landers, and to continue with one moonshot per year thereafter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat helps us get to the moon? Well, for sure, rendezvous and docking with one or ideally both landers, that gives you an opportunity to do some integrated testing of a vehicle that we are going to depend upon the following year to take those astronauts down to the surface of the moon,\u201d Isaacman told CBS News.<\/p>\n

The revised Artemis III mission will also give astronauts a chance to test out new , commercially provided spacesuits future moonwalkers will use on the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity to \u2026 actually have the suits in microgravity, even if we don\u2019t go outside the vehicle in them. You get a lot of good learning from that,\u201d Isaacman said.<\/p>\n

The Artemis III test flight with one or two lander dockings in Earth orbit is similar in concept to Apollo 9, which launched a command module and lander to Earth orbit for flight tests in 1969 and helped pave the way to the Apollo 11 landing four months later.<\/p>\n

Isaacman said SpaceX and Blue Origin are \u201cboth looking to do uncrewed landing demonstrations as part of the existing agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we want to just take advantage of this to set up both vendors for future success on a lunar landing,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is the proper way to do it, if it works out from a timing perspective, to be able to rendezvous and dock with both. \u2026 This, again, is the right way to proceed in order to have a high confidence opportunity in \u201928 to land.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Artemis IV and V missions in 2028 will use whichever landers are deemed ready for service. If only one company\u2019s lander is available, that lander would be used for both missions, an official said. If both are available, one would be used for one flight and one for the other.<\/p>\n

Launching Artemis III, IV and V before the end of 2028 will not be easy, and Isaacman said it is essential that NASA rebuild its workforce and regain the technical competence to support a higher launch cadence, moving from one flight every three years or so to a flight every year. That pace, he argued, will reduce risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you regain these core competencies and you start exercising your muscles, your skills do not atrophy,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s safer. And yes, you are buying down risk, because you\u2019re able to test things in low Earth orbit before you need to get to the moon, which is exactly what we did during the Apollo era.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he did not blame NASA\u2019s contractors for the current slow pace of Artemis launches. Instead, \u201cwe should have made better decisions (in the past) and said, you don\u2019t go from Artemis II to landing on the moon with Artemis III.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials said Isaacman had discussed accelerating lander development with both SpaceX and Blue Origin and that both were on board. He also discussed the accelerated Artemis overhaul with Boeing, which manages the SLS rocket and builds its massive first stage; with United Launch Alliance, builder of the rocket\u2019s upper stage, Orion-builder Lockheed Martin and other Artemis contractors.<\/p>\n

All, the official said, were in agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoeing is a proud partner to the Artemis mission and our team is honored to contribute to NASA\u2019s vision for American space leadership,\u201d Steve Parker, the president and CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, said in a statement. \u201cWe are ready to meet the increased demand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaacman also said the agency would halt work to develop a more powerful version of the SLS rocket\u2019s upper stage, known as the Exploration Upper Stage, or EUS. Instead, NASA will go forward with a \u201cstandardized,\u201d less powerful stage but one that will minimize major changes between flights and utilize the same launch gantry.<\/p>\n

Under the original Artemis architecture, NASA planned on multiple versions of the SLS rocket, ranging from the \u201cBlock 1\u201d vehicle currently in use to a more powerful EUS-equipped Block 1B and eventually an even bigger Block 2 model using advanced solid rocket boosters. The latter two versions required use of a taller mobile launch gantry, already well under construction at the Kennedy Space Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is needlessly complicated to alter the configuration of the SLS and Orion stack to undertake subsequent Artemis missions,\u201d Amit Kshatriya, NASA\u2019s associate administrator, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entire sequence of Artemis flights needs to represent a step-by-step build-up of capability, with each step bringing us closer to our ability to perform the landing missions. Each step needs to be big enough to make progress, but not so big that we take unnecessary risk given previous learnings.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, NASA will stick with the current version of the SLS with the addition of the \u201cstandardized\u201d upper stage. No other details were provided.<\/p>\n

Isaacman closed out the CBS interview by saying flight-tested hardware, a revitalized work force and a more Apollo-like management strategy are only part of the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s another ingredient that\u2019s required, and that\u2019s the orbital economy, whether it happens in low-Earth orbit or on the lunar surface,\u201d Isaacman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to do something where we can get more value out of space and the lunar surface than we put into it. And that\u2019s how you really ignite an economy, and that\u2019s how everything we want to do in space is not perpetually dependent on taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist concept of a SpaceX Starship lunar lander on the surface of the moon. Image: SpaceX. New NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced a major overhaul of the agency\u2019s Artemis moon program Friday, acknowledging that the agency\u2019s plan to land astronauts on the moon in 2028 was not realistic without another preparatory mission first to lay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[304,813],"class_list":["post-9604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-artemis","tag-hls"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9604"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}