The Artemis Program

Why go back

No human has walked on the Moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972. NASA's Artemis program aims to land astronauts near the lunar south pole, where permanently shadowed craters may hold water ice that future explorers could use for drinking water, air and rocket fuel. The program is international, with partners including the European, Canadian and Japanese space agencies.

Artemis I

On November 16, 2022, the Space Launch System, the most powerful rocket NASA has flown, launched an uncrewed Orion capsule around the Moon. During the 25-day flight, Orion travelled farther from Earth than any spacecraft built to carry humans, then splashed down in the Pacific on December 11, 2022.

Artemis II and beyond

Artemis II is the first crewed flight of the program, a flyby around the Moon with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. It will make Glover the first person of colour, Koch the first woman and Hansen the first non-American to travel to the Moon.

Later missions plan to land astronauts using commercial landers, and to build a small station in lunar orbit called Gateway. Schedules change often, so check NASA's Artemis page for current dates.

How to follow it

NASA streams launches live on NASA+ and YouTube. From Earth, you can also watch the Moon itself: the south pole region sits at the bottom edge of the Moon as seen from the northern hemisphere, a rugged area of mountains and craters.

Artemis by the numbers

The SLS rocket stands about 98 metres tall in its first version, and at launch it produces about 8.8 million pounds of thrust. Orion's heat shield must survive re-entry at around 40,000 km/h when returning from the Moon, much faster than a return from low Earth orbit. During Artemis I the heat shield lost more material than expected, and engineers studied it closely before flying a crew.

← James Webb Space TelescopeNew Horizons →