artemis

With Gateway likely gone, where will lunar landers rendezvous with Orion?

artemis, blue moon, human landing system, NASA, Space, starship / Kris Guyer / March 7, 2026

Drink up, astrodynamicists!

“We will challenge every requirement, clear every obstacle, delete every blocker.”

Artist’s illustration of Starship on the surface of the Moon. Credit: SpaceX

Last week, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman unveiled a major shakeup in the Artemis Program, intended to put the nation on a better path back to the Moon. The changes focused largely on increasing the launch cadence of NASA’s large SLS rocket and putting a greater emphasis on lunar surface activities. Days later, the US Senate indicated that it broadly supported these plans.

This is all well and good, but it neglects a critical element of the Artemis program: a lander capable of taking astronauts down to the lunar surface from an orbit around the Moon and back up to rendezvous with Orion. NASA has contracted with SpaceX and Blue Origin to develop these landers, Starship and Blue Moon MK2, respectively.

As part of his announcement, Isaacman said a revamped Artemis III mission will now be used to test one or both of these landers near Earth before they are called upon to land humans on the Moon later this decade.

NASA will launch Artemis III next year, he said, to be followed by one or possibly even two lunar landings in 2028. A single landing before the end of 2028 seems like a stretch, even for glass-half-full optimists in the space community. And for there to be a chance of happening, SpaceX or Blue Origin, or both, need to get hustling quickly.

Can they?

“Challenge every requirement”

Isaacman is mindful of these challenges, and one of his first moves as administrator was meeting with engineers from SpaceX and Blue Origin to hear their ideas for accelerating NASA’s Artemis timeline.

After this meeting on January 13, Isaacman said NASA would do what it could to facilitate the faster development of a Human Landing System: “We will challenge every requirement, clear every obstacle, delete every blocker and empower the team to deliver… and we will do it with time to spare.”

What does this actually mean? It suggests that Isaacman has directed his teams to make working with NASA less cumbersome for SpaceX and Blue Origin.

For example, to reach the Moon during the initial Artemis missions, a lander must dock with the Orion spacecraft. That may sound routine, as spacecraft have been rendezvousing and docking in space for six decades.

However, Orion is saddled with thousands of requirements, and virtually every decision point regarding docking must be signed off on by the lander company—SpaceX or Blue Origin—as well as NASA, Orion’s contractor Lockheed Martin, and the European service module contractor Airbus. Additionally, Orion has a lot of sensitive elements to work around, such as the plumes of its thrusters, and engineers have spent a lot of time working on issues such as ensuring consistent cabin pressures between vehicles. In short, it gets complicated fast.

A carbonated orbit emerges

One way NASA is helping the lander companies is by no longer requiring them to dock with Orion in a near-rectilinear halo orbit, an elliptical orbit that comes as close as 3,000 km to the surface of the Moon and as far as 70,000 km. This is where NASA planned to construct the Lunar Gateway space station, which is now likely to be canceled. It’s a boon for lunar landers since it required more energy to first stop there before dropping down to the surface.

Why not simply have Orion meet the landers in a low-lunar orbit, similar to the Apollo Program? This would allow the landers to consume less propellant on the way down and back up from the Moon. The reason is that, due to a number of poor decisions over the last 15 years, the Orion spacecraft’s service module does not have the performance needed to reach low-lunar orbit and then return safely to Earth. Hence the use of a near-rectilinear halo orbit.

A comparison between the NRHO and EPO/CoLA orbits. Credit: American Astronautical Society conference paper

However, a research paper published in July 2022 by NASA engineers at Johnson Space Center analyzes several other circular and elliptical orbits that Orion could reach with its present propulsive capabilities. Out of this analysis came another useful orbit with a name that just rolls off the tongue: Elliptical Polar Orbit with Coplanar Line of Apsides, or EPO/CoLA.

There are many details about the EPO/CoLA orbit in the research paper, but critically, its closest point to the Moon lies just 100 km above the Moon’s surface (the apolune distance is 6,500 km). For many landing sites, the paper notes, a Human Landing System vehicle can perform a single burn to reach a much lower orbit.

As part of his change in plans, Isaacman said the Space Launch System rocket’s upper stage would be “standardized” for Artemis IV and beyond. That means the first lunar landing mission will use a new upper stage, likely the Centaur V built by United Launch Alliance. This will have more propulsive capabilities than the current rocket, so it is possible that for Artemis IV, Orion could reach an even more favorable orbit (i.e., closer to the Moon, requiring less energy to reach the surface) than EPO/CoLA.

Can Starship be accelerated?

At the end of the day, it’s helpful to find new orbits and relax requirements where appropriate. But it will still be up to the lander contractors to deliver the goods, and for NASA, the sooner the better.

Last November, Ars looked at several ways Starship might be brought online faster as a lunar lander. Perhaps the biggest problem with using Starship as a lander is the need to fly multiple uncrewed tanker missions to refuel Starship in low-Earth orbit before it transits to the Moon and awaits a crew aboard Orion. This necessitates an estimated one- or two-dozen launches.

The best solution we could come up with was flying an optimized, expendable Starship tanker stage that would maximize propellant delivery per flight. When asked about this, though, SpaceX founder Elon Musk shot down the idea. Once Starship begins flying at rate, Musk believes, a dozen or more tanker missions per lunar flight will not pose a major impediment.

So it should come as no surprise that SpaceX has not proposed significant changes to its Human Landing System hardware. In response to NASA’s desire to accelerate the Artemis timeline, the company has indicated that it will prioritize the Human Landing System more as part of the Starship program. The company also suggested that eliminating the requirement to dock in near-rectilinear halo orbit could open up new mission plans, including potentially docking with Orion in orbit around Earth rather than the Moon.

What about Blue Origin?

Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, has been more responsive. Last October, Ars reported that the company had started working on a faster architecture that would not require orbital refueling. A month later, Blue Origin’s chief executive, Dave Limp, said the company “would move heaven and Earth” to help NASA reach the Moon sooner.

Based on recent documents reviewed by Ars, the company is continuing to refine its plan for a human lunar landing. Without a requirement to rendezvous in a near-rectilinear halo orbit, a lunar landing could potentially be accomplished with as few as three launches of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket. This would require the more powerful 9×4 variant of the New Glenn rocket now in development. The EPO/CoLA orbit described above enables such a mission profile.

One mission plan seen by Ars shows the launch of a simplified MK2 lander on one rocket, and two more launches of transfer stages, which subsequently dock in low-Earth orbit. The first transfer stage pushes this stack out of low-Earth orbit before separating. The second transfer stage pushes the lander into EPO/CoLA, where it docks with Orion and two astronauts move on board MK2. This second transfer stage then moves the lander to a 15 x 100 km lunar orbit before separating. MK2 then flies down to the Moon.

After a short stay on the Moon, the interim MK2 lander would ascend back to the EPO/CoLA, where it meets up with Orion.

There are plenty of questions about the readiness of the Blue Origin hardware, of course. And there are a lot of moving pieces now with the Moon landing moving to Artemis IV and the probable use of new orbits for a rendezvous with Orion near the Moon. So all of this remains very notional.

Neither NASA nor Blue Origin has spoken publicly about their accelerated landing plans. Hopefully, that will change soon, because it’s entirely possible that NASA’s best chance to reach the Moon before China will come down to the ability of a company that proudly sports a turtle as a mascot to move a little more quickly.

Note: This story was updated at 11: 30 am ET Friday with additional information.

Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston.

With Gateway likely gone, where will lunar landers rendezvous with Orion? Read More »

The US Senate empowers NASA to fully engage in lunar space race

artemis, isaacman, NASA, Senate, Space / Tim Belzer / March 4, 2026

During a brief hearing on Wednesday morning, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation spent only a few minutes “marking up” new legislation that provides guidance to NASA for its various initiatives, including the Artemis program to land humans on the Moon.

“Our bill authorizes critical funding for, and gives strategic direction to, the agency in line with the priorities of administrator Isaacman and the Trump administration,” said the committee’s chairman, Sen. Ted Cruz, (R-Texas).

The duration of the hearing, however, seems to be the inverse of its significance.

Elements of the legislation, now branded as The NASA Authorization Act of 2026 (see full text), have undergone significant revisions since just last week. The sweeping changes follow NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman’s announcement on Friday that he was shuffling the Artemis program to ensure that the US space agency would beat China back to the Moon and establish a long-term presence at the lunar south pole. In large part, the Senate’s bill endorses Isaacman’s plan of action.

“NASA faces a series of challenges,” Cruz said Wednesday. “Those challenges culminated in an announcement last Friday that NASA was making major changes to the Artemis missions and our eventual return to the lunar surface. Today, the Commerce committee will help guide those changes.”

Major changes to Artemis approved

With the revised legislation, Cruz and the Senate committee have empowered Isaacman and NASA to make significant changes to the Artemis Program. The revised plan for the space agency will likely lead to more launches and a much greater emphasis on the lunar surface.

The US Senate empowers NASA to fully engage in lunar space race Read More »

No fooling: NASA targets April 1 for Artemis II launch to the Moon

artemis, artemis II, human spaceflight, Kennedy Space Center, moon, NASA, Space, space launch system / Tim Belzer / March 3, 2026

NASA has fixed the problem that forced the removal of the rocket for the Artemis II mission from its launch pad last month, but it will be a couple of weeks before officials are ready to move the vehicle back into the starting blocks at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The 322-foot-tall (98-meter) rocket could have launched as soon as this week after it passed a key fueling test on February 21. During that test, NASA loaded the Space Launch System rocket with super-cold propellants without any major problems, apparently overcoming a persistent hydrogen leak that prevented the mission from launching in early February.

However, another problem cropped up just one day after the successful fueling demo. Ground teams were unable to flow helium into the rocket’s upper stage. Unlike the connections to the core stage, which workers can repair at the launch pad, the umbilical lines leading to the upper stage higher up the rocket are only accessible inside the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy.

Mission managers quickly decided to roll the rocket back to the assembly building for troubleshooting. The rocket returned to the VAB on February 25, and within a week, engineers found the source of the helium flow issue. Inspections revealed that a seal in the quick disconnect, through which helium flows from ground systems into the rocket, was obstructing the pathway, according to NASA.

Sealing the deal

“The team removed the quick disconnect, reassembled the system, and began validating the repairs to the upper stage by running a reduced flow rate of helium through the mechanism to ensure the issue was resolved,” NASA said in an update posted Tuesday. “Engineers are assessing what allowed the seal to become dislodged to prevent the issue from recurring.”

No fooling: NASA targets April 1 for Artemis II launch to the Moon Read More »

NASA shakes up its Artemis program to speed up lunar return

artemis, blue origin, Boeing, NASA, Space, spacex, united launch alliance / Rejus Almole / March 1, 2026

“Launching SLS every three and a half years or so is not a recipe for success.”

Artist’s illustration of the Boeing-developed Exploration Upper Stage, with four hydrogen-fueled RL10 engines. Credit: NASA

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced sweeping changes to the Artemis program on Friday morning, including an increased cadence of missions and cancellation of an expensive rocket stage.

The upheaval comes as NASA has struggled to fuel the massive Space Launch System rocket for the upcoming Artemis II lunar mission, and Isaacman has sought to revitalize an agency that has moved at a glacial pace on its deep space programs. There is ever-increasing concern that, absent a shake-up, China’s rising space program will land humans on the Moon before NASA can return there this decade with Artemis.

“NASA must standardize its approach, increase flight rate safely, and execute on the president’s national space policy,” Isaacman said. “With credible competition from our greatest geopolitical adversary increasing by the day, we need to move faster, eliminate delays, and achieve our objectives.”

Shaking things up

The announced changes to the Artemis program include:

Cancellation of the Exploration Upper Stage and Block IB upgrade for SLS rocket
Artemis II and Artemis III missions will use the SLS rocket with existing upper stage
Artemis IV, V (and any additional missions, should there be) will use a “standardized” upper stage
Artemis III will no longer land on the Moon; rather Orion will launch on SLS and dock with Starship and/or Blue Moon landers in low-Earth orbit
Artemis IV is now the first lunar landing mission
NASA will seek to fly Artemis missions annually, starting with Artemis III in “mid” 2027, followed by at least one lunar landing in 2028
NASA is working with SpaceX and Blue Origin to accelerate their development of commercial lunar landers for Artemis IV and beyond

At the core of Isaacman’s concerns is the low flight rate of the SLS rocket and Artemis missions. During past exploration missions, from Mercury through Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle program, NASA has launched humans on average about once every three months. It has been nearly 3.5 years since Artemis I launched.

“This is just not the right pathway forward,” Isaacman said.

A senior NASA official, speaking on background to Ars, noted that the space agency has experienced hydrogen and helium leaks during both the Artemis I and Artemis II pre-launch preparations, and these problems have led to monthslong delays in launch.

“If I recall, the timing between Apollo 7 and 8 was nine weeks,” the official said. “Launching SLS every three and a half years or so is not a recipe for success. Certainly, making each one of them a work of art with some major configuration change is also not helpful in the process, and we’re clearly seeing the results of it, right?”

The goal, therefore, is to standardize the SLS rocket into a single configuration to make it as reliable as possible and to launch it as frequently as every 10 months. NASA will fly the SLS vehicle until there are commercial alternatives to launch crew to the Moon, perhaps through Artemis V as Congress has mandated, or perhaps even a little longer.

Is everyone on board?

The NASA official said all of the agency’s key contractors are on board with the change, and senior leaders in Congress have been briefed on the proposed changes.

The biggest opposition to these proposals would seemingly come from Boeing, which is the prime contractor for the Exploration Upper Stage, a contract worth billions of dollars to develop a more powerful rocket that was due to launch for the first time later this decade. However, in a NASA news release, Boeing appeared to offer at least some support for the revised plans.

“Boeing is a proud partner to the Artemis mission and our team is honored to contribute to NASA’s vision for American space leadership,” said Steve Parker, Boeing Defense, Space & Security president and CEO, in the news release. “The SLS core stage remains the world’s most powerful rocket stage, and the only one that can carry American astronauts directly to the moon and beyond in a single launch. As NASA lays out an accelerated launch schedule, our workforce and supply chain are prepared to meet the increased production needs.”

Solid reasons for changing Artemis III

NASA’s new approach to Artemis reflects a return to the philosophy of the Apollo program. During the late 1960s, the space agency flew a series of preparatory crewed missions before the Apollo 11 lunar landing. These included Apollo 7 (a low-Earth orbit test of the Apollo spacecraft), Apollo 8 (a lunar orbiting mission), Apollo 9 (a low-Earth orbit rendezvous with the lunar lander), and Apollo 10 (a test of the lunar lander descending to the Moon, without touching down).

With its previous Artemis template, NASA skipped the steps taken by Apollo 7, 9, and 10. In the view of many industry officials, this leap from Artemis II—a crewed lunar flyby of the Moon testing only the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft—to Artemis III and a full-on lunar landing was enormous and risky.

The new approach will, in NASA parlance, “buy down” some of the risk for a 21st-century lunar landing, including performance and handling of a lunar lander, rendezvous and docking, communications, spacesuit performance, and more.

It will also increase the challenges for NASA. In particular, the timeline to bring the Orion spacecraft to readiness for a mid-2027 launch will need to be accelerated, and efforts to integrate that vehicle with one or both lander providers will need serious attention.

For the Artemis IV lunar landing mission, NASA will also need to human-rate a new upper stage for the SLS rocket. The vehicle currently uses a modified Delta IV upper stage manufactured by United Launch Alliance. But that rocket production line is closed, and NASA only has two more of these stages. With the cancellation of the Exploration Upper Stage, NASA will now procure a new stage commercially. NASA officials only said they will seek a “standardized” upper stage. As Ars has previously reported, the most likely replacement would be the Centaur V upper stage currently flying on Vulcan rockets.

What of the Lunar Gateway?

Friday’s announcement—which, for the space community, is the equivalent of a major earthquake—left some key details unaddressed. For example, NASA has been developing a larger launch tower to support the Block 1B version of the SLS rocket, with its more powerful upper stage. Development of this tower, finally underway, has been a clown show, with project costs ballooning from an initial estimate of $383 million to $1.8 billion, and delays stacked on delays. Will this tower be scrapped or repurposed?

Isaacman and other NASA officials were also mum on the Lunar Gateway, a proposed space station in a high orbit around the Moon. Key elements of this space station are under construction. However, cancellation of the Exploration Upper Stage raises questions about its future. The main purpose of the Block 1B version of SLS was to launch heavier payloads, most notably elements of the Gateway along with Orion.

“The whole Gateway-Moon base conversation is not for today,” the senior NASA official said. “We, I can assure you, will talk about the Moon base in the weeks ahead. I would just not overly read into this, because we had manifested some Gateway modules on Falcon Heavy already. The implications of standardizing SLS and increasing launch rate are about the ability to return to the Moon. I don’t think we necessarily have to speculate too much on what the other downstream implications are.”

The Gateway program office is based at Johnson Space Center in Houston, where the lunar station is viewed as a successor to the International Space Station in terms of flight operations.

Key politicians, such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, have been supportive of this new station. But during some recent congressional hearings, Cruz has indicated he is open to a lunar space station or an outpost on the lunar surface. He just wants to be sure NASA has an enduring presence on or near the Moon. One industry source said Isaacman could be laying the groundwork to replace the Gateway Program with a Moon Base program office in Houston. It is unclear how much of a political battle this would ultimately be.

Some of this has been well-predicted

Although the changes outlined by NASA on Friday are sweeping, they are not completely out of the blue.

In April 2024, Ars reported that some senior NASA officials were considering an Earth-orbit rendezvous between Orion and Starship as a means to buy down risk for a lunar landing. NASA ultimately punted on the idea before it was revived by Isaacman this month.

Additionally, in October 2024, Ars offered a guide to saving the “floundering” Artemis program by canceling the Block 1B upgrade for the SLS rocket, replacing its upper stage with a Centaur V, and canceling the Lunar Gateway. This would free up an estimated $2 billion annually to focus on accelerating a lunar landing, the publication estimated.

That may be the very course the space agency has embarked upon today.

NASA shakes up its Artemis program to speed up lunar return Read More »

NASA shakes up its Artemis program to speed up lunar return

artemis, blue origin, Boeing, NASA, Space, spacex, Staff, united launch alliance / Kris Guyer / February 27, 2026

“Launching SLS every three and a half years or so is not a recipe for success.”

Artist’s illustration of the Boeing-developed Exploration Upper Stage, with four hydrogen-fueled RL10 engines. Credit: NASA

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced sweeping changes to the Artemis program on Friday morning, including an increased cadence of missions and cancellation of an expensive rocket stage.

Shaking things up

The announced changes to the Artemis program include:

Cancellation of the Exploration Upper Stage and Block IB upgrade for SLS rocket
Artemis II and Artemis III missions will use the SLS rocket with existing upper stage
Artemis IV, V (and any additional missions, should there be) will use a “standardized” upper stage
Artemis III will no longer land on the Moon; rather Orion will launch on SLS and dock with Starship and/or Blue Moon landers in low-Earth orbit
Artemis IV is now the first lunar landing mission
NASA will seek to fly Artemis missions annually, starting with Artemis III in “mid” 2027, followed by at least one lunar landing in 2028
NASA is working with SpaceX and Blue Origin to accelerate their development of commercial lunar landers for Artemis IV and beyond

“This is just not the right pathway forward,” Isaacman said.

Is everyone on board?

The NASA official said all of the agency’s key contractors are on board with the change, and senior leaders in Congress have been briefed on the proposed changes.

Solid reasons for changing Artemis III

What of the Lunar Gateway?

The Gateway program office is based at Johnson Space Center in Houston, where the lunar station is viewed as a successor to the International Space Station in terms of flight operations.

Some of this has been well-predicted

Although the changes outlined by NASA on Friday are sweeping, they are not completely out of the blue.

That may be the very course the space agency has embarked upon today.

NASA shakes up its Artemis program to speed up lunar return Read More »

NASA reports no significant leaks in Artemis II fueling test, eyes March 6 launch

artemis, artemis II, human spaceflight, Kennedy Space Center, moon, NASA, Space, space launch system / Rejus Almole / February 20, 2026

A second fueling test on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket ended Thursday night, giving senior managers enough confidence to move forward with plans to launch four astronauts around the Moon as soon as March 6.

Unlike the first attempt to load propellants into the SLS rocket on February 2, there were no major leaks during Thursday’s practice countdown at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Technicians swapped seals at the launch pad after hydrogen gas leaked from the rocket’s main fueling line earlier this month. This time, the seals held.

“For the most part, those fixes all performed pretty well yesterday,” said Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for NASA’s exploration programs. “We were able to fully fuel the SLS rocket within the planned timeline.”

The results keep the Artemis II mission on track for liftoff as soon as next month. NASA gave up on a series of February launch opportunities after encountering a persistent hydrogen leak during the first Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR).

“We’re now targeting March 6 as our earliest launch attempt,” Glaze said. “I am going to caveat that. I want to be open, transparent with all of you that there is still pending work. There’s work, a lot of forward work, that remains.”

If teams complete all of that work, liftoff of the Artemis II mission could occur within a two-hour window opening at 8: 29 pm EST on March 6 (01: 29 UTC on March 7). NASA has other launch dates available on March 7, 8, 9, and 11, but the mission may have to wait until April. There are approximately five days per month that the mission can depart the Earth after accounting for the position of the Moon in its orbit, the flight’s trajectory, and thermal and lighting constraints.

The Artemis II mission will last between nine and 10 days, taking NASA’s Orion spacecraft with commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen around the far side of the Moon before returning to Earth for splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Wiseman’s crew will set the record for the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth, and will become the first people to fly to the vicinity of the Moon since 1972.

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NASA has a new problem to fix before the next Artemis II countdown test

artemis, artemis II, artemis iii, human spaceflight, jared isaacman, Kennedy Space Center, NASA, orion, Science, Space, space launch system / Tim Belzer / February 14, 2026

John Honeycutt, chair of NASA’s Artemis II mission management team, said the decision to relax the safety limit between Artemis I and Artemis II was grounded in test data.

“The SLS program, they came up with a test campaign that actually looked at that cavity, the characteristics of the cavity, the purge in the cavity … and they introduced hydrogen to see when you could actually get it to ignite, and at 16 percent, you could not,” said Honeycutt, who served as NASA’s SLS program manager before moving to his new job.

Hydrogen is explosive in high concentrations when mixed with air. This is what makes hydrogen a formidable rocket fuel. But it is also notoriously difficult to contain. Molecular hydrogen is the smallest molecule, meaning it can readily escape through leak paths, and poses a materials challenge for seals because liquified hydrogen is chilled to minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 253 degrees Celsius).

So, it turns out NASA used the three-year interim between Artemis I and Artemis II to get comfortable with a more significant hydrogen leak, instead of fixing the leaks themselves. Isaacman said that will change before Artemis III, which likewise is probably at least three years away.

“I will say near-conclusively for Artemis III, we will cryoproof the vehicle before it gets to the pad, and the propellant loading interfaces we are troubleshooting will be redesigned,” Isaacman wrote.

Isaacman took over as NASA’s administrator in December, and has criticized the SLS program’s high cost—estimated by NASA’s inspector general at more than $2 billion per rocket—along with the launch vehicle’s torpid flight rate.

NASA’s expenditures for the rocket’s ground systems at Kennedy Space Center are similarly enormous. NASA spent nearly $900 million on Artemis ground support infrastructure in 2024 alone. Much of the money went toward constructing a new launch platform for an upgraded version of the Space Launch System that may never fly.

All of this makes each SLS rocket a golden egg, a bespoke specimen that must be treated with care because it is too expensive to replace. NASA and Boeing, the prime contractor for the SLS core stage, never built a full-size test model of the core stage. There’s currently no way to completely test the cryogenic interplay between the core stage and ground equipment until the fully assembled rocket is on the launch pad.

Existing law requires NASA continue flying the SLS rocket through the Artemis V mission. Isaacman wrote that the Artemis architecture “will continue to evolve as we learn more and as industry capabilities mature.” In other words, NASA will incorporate newer, cheaper, reusable rockets into the Artemis program.

The next series of launch opportunities for the Artemis II mission begin March 3. If the mission doesn’t lift off in March, NASA will need to roll the rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building to refresh its flight termination system. There are more launch dates available in April and May.

“There is still a great deal of work ahead to prepare for this historic mission,” Isaacman wrote. “We will not launch unless we are ready and the safety of our astronauts will remain the highest priority. We will keep everyone informed as NASA prepares to return to the Moon.”

NASA has a new problem to fix before the next Artemis II countdown test Read More »

Why is Bezos trolling Musk on X with turtle pics? Because he has a new Moon plan.

artemis, blue moon, blue origin, Space, spacex / Rejus Almole / February 13, 2026

“It’s time to go back to the Moon—this time to stay.”

Step by step, ferociously? Credit: Jeff Bezos/X

The founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, does not often post on the social media site owned by his rival Elon Musk. But on Monday, Bezos did, sharing a black-and-white image of a turtle emerging from the shadows on X.

The photo, which included no text, may have stumped some observers. Yet for anyone familiar with Bezos’ privately owned space company, Blue Origin, the message was clear. The company’s coat of arms prominently features two turtles, a reference to one of Aesop’s Fables, “The Tortoise and the Hare,” in which the slow and steady tortoise wins the race over a quicker but overconfident hare.

Bezos’ foray into social media turtle trolling came about 12 hours after Musk made major waves in the space community by announcing that SpaceX was pivoting toward the Moon, rather than Mars, as a near-term destination. It represented a huge shift in Musk’s thinking, as the SpaceX founder has long spoken of building a multi-planetary civilization on Mars.

Welcome to the Club

It must have provided Bezos with some self-satisfaction. He is also a believer in human settlement of space, but he has espoused the view that our spacefaring species should begin on the Moon and then build orbital space habitats. Back in 2019, when unveiling his vision, Bezos spoke about NASA’s goal of returning humans to the Moon through the Artemis Program. “I love this,” Bezos said. “It’s the right thing to do. We can help meet that timeline but only because we started three years ago. It’s time to go back to the Moon—this time to stay.”

So in posting an image of a turtle, Bezos was sending a couple of messages to Musk. First, it was something of a sequel to Bezos’ infamous “Welcome to the Club” tweet more than a decade ago. And secondly, Bezos was telling Musk that slow and steady wins the race. In other words, Bezos believes Blue Origin will beat SpaceX back to the Moon.

Why would Bezos, whose company has launched to orbit all of two times, think Blue Origin has a chance to compete with SpaceX (which has more than 600 orbital launches) to land humans on the Moon?

The answer can be found in a pair of documents obtained by Ars that outline an accelerated Artemis architecture that Blue Origin is now developing.

Some background on the Human Landing System

A little more than five years ago, NASA reached out to the US commercial space industry for help in building a lunar lander. This lander would dock with NASA’s Orion spacecraft to carry humans from an elliptical orbit around the Moon, known as a near-rectilinear halo orbit, down to the lunar surface and back up to Orion.

The story of what happened as part of this bidding process is long and convoluted (including lawsuits and remarkable graphics like this one from Blue Origin). However, what really matters is that, by 2023, both SpaceX and Blue Origin had contracts from NASA to develop lunar landers—SpaceX with Starship and Blue Origin with Blue Moon MK2—for crewed missions as part of the Artemis Program. Both mission architectures required propellant refueling, essentially the launch of “tankers” from Earth to transfer large amounts of fuel and oxidizer into low-Earth orbit to complete a lunar landing. SpaceX was considered to have a considerable lead on Blue Origin.

In 2025, again for complex reasons, it became clear that while these reusable landers were fantastic for a long-term lunar program, there were two problems. The first was that SpaceX blew up three Starships during testing last year, raising serious questions about whether the company would be ready to complete a lunar landing before 2030. And second, it was becoming clear that China may well have a simpler lander that could put taikonauts on the Moon before 2030.

Blue’s new plan

Last October, Ars revealed that Blue Origin was beginning to work on an “accelerated” architecture that could potentially land humans on the Moon before 2030 without requiring orbital refueling. Now, thanks to some new documents, we know what those landings could look like. The screenshots shared with Ars show two different missions, an uncrewed “demo” flight and a crewed Moon landing. Here’s what they entail:

Uncrewed demo mission: This requires three launches of the New Glenn rocket. The first two launches each put a “Transfer stage” into low-Earth orbit. The third launch puts a “Blue Moon MK2-IL” into orbit. (The “IL” stands for Initial Lander, and it appears to be a smaller version of the Blue Moon MK2 lander.) All three vehicles dock, and the first transfer stage boosts the stack to an elliptical orbit around Earth (after this, the stage burns up in Earth’s atmosphere). The second transfer stage then boosts the MK-2 lander from Earth orbit into a 15×100 km orbit above the Moon. From here, the MK-2 lander separates and goes down to the Moon, later ascending back to low-lunar orbit.

Crewed demo mission: This requires four launches of the New Glenn rocket. The first three launches each put a “Transfer stage” into low-Earth orbit. A fourth launch puts the MK2-IL lander into orbit and the vehicles dock. The first transfer stage pushes the stack into an elliptical Earth orbit. The second transfer stage pushes the stack to rendezvous with Orion in a near-rectilinear halo orbit. After the crew boards, the third and final transfer stage pushes the MK-2 lander into a low-lunar orbit before separating. The lander goes down to the Moon and then ascends to re-rendezvous with Orion.

A rendering of Blue Origin’s proposed Lunar Transporter. Credit: Blue Origin

The documents Ars has reviewed do not contain some crucial information. For example, what are the “transfer stages” they refer to? Are they the Lunar Transporter, a reusable space tug, under development? Or a modified upper stage of New Glenn or something else? It’s also unclear whether the Blue Moon MK2-IL is more like the simpler MK1 lander (which should fly soon) or if it will require major development work. Ars put these and other questions to Blue Origin, which declined to comment for this article.

So what to make of all this?

Sources indicated that Blue Origin is moving aggressively forward on its lunar program. This is one reason why the company recently iced its New Shepard spacecraft and has curtailed other activities to increase focus on major goals, including ramping up New Glenn cadence and accelerating lunar plans. This new architecture is one result of that.

There are major steps to go. The company must demonstrate the Blue Moon vehicle with the uncrewed MK1 mission, which likely will launch sometime late this spring or during the summer, with a lunar landing to follow. And although there is no orbital refueling as part of this new plan, it still requires complex docking and deep-space maneuvers, which Blue Origin has no experience with. Whether Bezos’ company could pull off all of these challenging tasks before 2030 is far from certain.

But one thing is clear. The 21st century space race back to the Moon now includes three participants: China’s state-run program, SpaceX, and Blue Origin. Game on.

Why is Bezos trolling Musk on X with turtle pics? Because he has a new Moon plan. Read More »

NASA stage show explores “outer” outer space with Henson’s Fraggles

A Space-y Adventure, artemis, Cotterpin, doozer, Florida, Fraggle, fraggle rock, Gobo, Henson Creature Shop, international space station, John Tartaglia, Kennedy Space Center, KSCVC, NASA, RED, Space, Space Coast, Space exploration, space history, stage show, The Jim Henson Company, Uncle Traveling Matt, Universe Theater, Visitor Complex / Rejus Almole / February 7, 2026

(Asked why Traveling Matt would not have recognized the Moon from his time in outer space, Tartaglia said that perhaps he did see it, but only as a thin crescent, and did not equate the two. Or maybe it was that he was “so forward-driven” that he never bothered to look up.)

A postcard with a picture of a “cookie” helps lead Gobo, Red, and Uncle Traveling Matt to learning about the moon and how NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems team is enabling astronaut missions to the lunar surface. Credit: Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex

As Gobo, Red, and Traveling Matt step through the Fraggle hole onto the stage at Kennedy, they are no longer hand-operated puppets but full-body “walk-around” characters. And to remain to scale, that meant up-scaling another character, too.

“When we scaled up the Fraggles to be costume-size, so they could dance and move without being encumbered by being just puppets, we realized that one of the Doozers would have to become puppet-size. That was really fun to do because the real Doozers are six inches tall, and they are animatronic. They’re teeny, and now they get to have their glory as hand puppets,” said Tartaglia, who also voices Gobo for the show and performs as him when in puppet size.

Down at Fraggle Rock

When NASA first contacted the Jim Henson Company about bringing the Fraggles to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, Tartaglia and his team knew it would be cool. And once they decided to have Uncle Traveling Matt be the show’s central character, the plot came together fairly quickly.

“He’s a great character to learn from because he is so oblivious, and he thinks he knows everything, and he really doesn’t. So he’s a great character to use as a bridge for the audience to be able to learn all these awesome facts and figures about NASA,” said Tartaglia.

He and his team also came to appreciate how much Fraggle Rock shares with the space agency, its activities, and goals.

“We all started talking and realized really quickly that Fraggles and Doozers and the whole message of Fraggle Rock—especially about Uncle Matt—is about exploring new worlds, making discoveries, and the whole fragile ecosystem. All of these different worlds need each other and want to work to learn more about each other. It sounded all very aligned with what NASA does and the whole purpose of space exploration,” said Tartaglia.

“So our two worlds that on paper wouldn’t seem connected, made a lot of sense to connect,” he said.

NASA stage show explores “outer” outer space with Henson’s Fraggles Read More »

The fastest human spaceflight mission in history crawls closer to liftoff

artemis, artemis II, Christina Koch, human spaceflight, Jeremy Hansen, Kennedy Space Center, moon, NASA, orion, Reid Wiseman, Science, Space, space launch system, victor glover / Rejus Almole / January 19, 2026

After a remarkably smooth launch campaign, Artemis II reached its last stop before the Moon.

NASA’s Space Launch System rocket rolls to Launch Complex 39B on Saturday. Credit: Stephen Clark/Ars Technica

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida—Preparations for the first human spaceflight to the Moon in more than 50 years took a big step forward this weekend with the rollout of the Artemis II rocket to its launch pad.

The rocket reached a top speed of just 1 mph on the four-mile, 12-hour journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At the end of its nearly 10-day tour through cislunar space, the Orion capsule on top of the rocket will exceed 25,000 mph as it plunges into the atmosphere to bring its four-person crew back to Earth.

“This is the start of a very long journey,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “We ended our last human exploration of the moon on Apollo 17.”

The Artemis II mission will set several notable human spaceflight records. Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen will travel farther from Earth than any human in history. They won’t land. That distinction will fall to the next mission in line in NASA’s Artemis program.

But the Artemis II astronauts will travel more than 4,000 miles beyond the far side of the Moon (the exact distance depends on the launch date), setting up for a human spaceflight speed record during their blazing reentry over the Pacific Ocean a few days later. Koch will become the first woman to fly to the vicinity of the Moon, and Hansen will be the first non-US astronaut to do the same.

“We really are ready to go,” said Wiseman, the Artemis II commander, during Saturday’s rollout to the launch pad. “We were in a sim [in Houston] for about 10 hours yesterday doing our final capstone entry and landing sim. We got in T-38s last night and we flew to the Cape to be here for this momentous occasion.”

The rollout began around sunrise Saturday, with NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule riding a mobile launch platform and a diesel-powered crawler transporter along a throughway paved with crushed Alabama river rock. Employees, VIPs, and guests gathered along the crawlerway to watch the 11 million-pound stack inch toward the launch pad. The rollout concluded about an hour after sunset, when the crawler transporter’s jacking system lowered the mobile launch platform onto pedestals at Pad 39B.

Hitting the launch window

The rollout keeps the Artemis II mission on track for liftoff as soon as next month, when NASA has a handful of launch opportunities on February 6, 7, 8, 10, and 11.

The big milestone leading up to launch day will be a practice countdown or Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR), currently slated for around February 2, when NASA’s launch team will pump more than 750,000 gallons of super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen into the rocket. NASA had trouble keeping the cryogenic fluids at the proper temperature, then encountered hydrogen leaks when the launch team first tried to fill the rocket for the unpiloted Artemis I mission in 2022. Engineers implemented the same fixes on Artemis II that they used to finally get over the hump with propellant loading on Artemis I.

So, what are the odds NASA can actually get the Artemis II mission off the ground next month?

“We’ll have to have things go right,” said Matt Ramsey, NASA’s Artemis II mission manager, in an interview with Ars on Saturday. “There’s a day of margin there for weather. There’s some time after WDR that we’ve got for data reviews and that sort of thing. It’s not unreasonable, but I do think it’s a success-oriented schedule.”

The Moon has to be in the right position in its orbit for the Artemis II launch to proceed. There are also restrictions on launch dates to ensure the Orion capsule returns to Earth and reenters the atmosphere at an angle safe for the ship’s heat shield. If the launch does not happen in February, NASA has a slate of backup launch dates in early March.

Ars was at Kennedy Space Center for the rocket’s move to the launch pad Saturday. The photo gallery below shows the launcher emerging from the Vehicle Assembly Building, the same facility once used to stack Saturn V rockets during the Apollo Moon program. The Artemis II astronauts were also on hand for a question and answer session with reporters.

Around the clock

The first flight of astronauts on the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft is running at least five years late. The flight’s architecture, trajectory, and goals have changed multiple times, and technical snags discovered during manufacturing and testing repeatedly shifted the schedule. The program’s engineering and budgetary problems are well documented.

But the team readying the rocket and spacecraft for launch has hit a stride in recent months. Technicians inside the Vehicle Assembly Building started stacking the SLS rocket in late 2024, beginning with the vehicle’s twin solid-fueled boosters. Then ground teams added the core stage, upper stage, and finally installed the Orion spacecraft on top of the rocket last October.

Working nearly around the clock in three shifts, it took about 12 months for crews at Kennedy to assemble the rocket and prepare it for rollout. But the launch campaign inside the VAB was remarkably smooth. Ground teams shaved about two months off the time it took to integrate the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I mission, which launched on the program’s first full-up unpiloted test flight in 2022.

“About a year ago, I was down here and we set the rollout date, and we hit it within a day or two,” said Matt Ramsey, NASA’s mission manager for Artemis II. “Being able to stay on schedule, it was a daily grind to be able to do that.”

Engineers worked through a handful of technical problems last year, including an issue with a pressure-assisted device used to assist the astronauts in opening the Orion hatch in the event of an emergency. More recently, NASA teams cleared a concern with caps installed on the rocket’s upper stage, according to Ramsey.

The most significant engineering review focused on proving the Orion heat shield is safe to fly. That assessment occurred in the background from the perspective of the technicians working on Artemis II at Kennedy.

The Artemis II team is now focused on activities at the launch pad. This week, NASA plans to perform a series of tests extending and retracting the crew access mark. Next, the Artemis II astronauts will rehearse an emergency evacuation from the launch pad. That will be followed by servicing of the rocket’s hydraulic steering system.

The big question mark

All of this leads up to the crucial practice countdown early next month. The astronauts won’t be aboard the rocket for the test, but almost everything else will look like launch day. The countdown will halt around 30 seconds prior to the simulated liftoff.

It took repeated tries to get through the Wet Dress Rehearsal for the Artemis I mission. There were four attempts at the countdown practice run before the first actual Artemis I launch countdown. After encountering hydrogen leaks on two scrubbed launch attempts, NASA performed another fueling test before finally successfully launching Artemis I in November 2022.

The launch team repaired a leaky hydrogen seal and introduced a gentler hydrogen loading procedure to overcome the problem. Hydrogen is an extremely efficient fuel for rockets, but its super-cold temperature and the tiny size of hydrogen molecules make it prone to leakage. The hydrogen feeds the SLS rocket’s four core stage engines and single upper stage engine.

“Artemis I was a test flight, and we learned a lot during that campaign getting to launch,” said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA’s Artemis II launch director. “The things that we’ve learned relative to how to go load this vehicle, how to load LOX (liquid oxygen), how to load hydrogen, have all been rolled in to the way in which we intend to load the Artemis II vehicle.”

NASA is hesitant to publicly set a target launch date until the agency gets through the dress rehearsal, but agency officials say a February launch remains feasible.

“We’ve held schedule pretty well getting to rollout today,” Isaacman said. “We have zero intention of communicating an actual launch date until we get through wet dress. But look, that’s our first window, and if everything is tracking accordingly, I know the teams are prepared, I know this crew is prepared, we’ll take it.”

“Wet dress is the driver to launch,” Blackwell-Thompson said. “With a wet dress that is without significant issues, if everything goes to plan, then certainly there are opportunities within February that could be achievable.”

One constraint that threw a wrench into NASA’s Artemis I launch campaign is no longer a significant factor for Artemis II. On Artemis I, NASA had to roll the rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) after the wet dress rehearsal to complete final installation and testing on its flight termination system, which consists of a series of pyrotechnic charges designed to destroy the rocket if it flies off course and threatens populated areas after liftoff.

The US Space Force’s Eastern Range, responsible for public safety for all launches from Florida’s Space Coast, requires the flight termination system be retested after 28 to 35 days, a clock that started ticking last week before rollout. During Artemis I, technicians could not access the parts of the rocket they needed to in order to perform the retest at the launch pad. NASA now has structural arms to give ground teams the ability to reach parts higher up the rocket for the retest without returning to the hangar.

With this new capability, Artemis II could remain at the pad for launch opportunities in February and March before officials need to bring it back to the VAB to replace the flight termination system’s batteries, which still can’t be accessed at the pad.

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

The fastest human spaceflight mission in history crawls closer to liftoff Read More »

Managers on alert for “launch fever” as pressure builds for NASA’s Moon mission

artemis, artemis II, human spaceflight, Kennedy Space Center, moon, NASA, orion, Science, Space, space launch system / Paul Patrick / January 17, 2026

“Putting crew on the rocket and taking the crew around the Moon, this is going be our first step toward a sustained lunar presence,” Honeycutt said. “It’s 10 days [and] four astronauts going farther from Earth than any other human has ever traveled. We’ll be validating the Orion spacecraft’s life support, navigation and crew systems in the really harsh environments of deep space, and that’s going to pave the way for future landings.”

NASA’s 322-foot-tall (98-meter) SLS rocket inside the Vehicle Assembly Building on the eve of rollout to Launch Complex 39B. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

There is still much work ahead before NASA can clear Artemis II for launch. At the launch pad, technicians will complete final checkouts and closeouts before NASA’s launch team gathers in early February for a critical practice countdown. During this countdown, called a Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR), Blackwell-Thompson and her team will oversee the loading of the SLS rocket’s core stage and upper stage with super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants.

The cryogenic fluids, particularly liquid hydrogen, gave fits to the Artemis launch team as NASA prepared to launch the Artemis I mission—without astronauts—on the SLS rocket’s first test flight in 2022. Engineers resolved the issues and successfully launched the Artemis I mission in November 2022, and officials will apply the lessons for the Artemis II countdown.

“Artemis I was a test flight, and we learned a lot during that campaign getting to launch,” Blackwell-Thompson said. “And the things that we’ve learned relative to how to go load this vehicle, how to load LOX (liquid oxygen), how to load hydrogen, have all been rolled in to the way in which we intend to do for the Artemis II vehicle.”

Finding the right time to fly

Assuming the countdown rehearsal goes according to plan, NASA could be in a position to launch the Artemis II mission as soon as February 6. But the schedule for February 6 is tight, with no margin for error. Officials typically have about five days per month when they can launch Artemis II, when the Moon is in the right position relative to Earth, and the Orion spacecraft can follow the proper trajectory toward reentry and splashdown to limit stress on the capsule’s heat shield.

In February, the available launch dates are February 6, 7, 8, 10, and 11, with launch windows in the overnight hours in Florida. If the mission isn’t off the ground by February 11, NASA will have to stand down until a new series of launch opportunities beginning March 6. The space agency has posted a document showing all available launch dates and times through the end of April.

John Honeycutt, chair NASA’s Mission Management Team for the Artemis II mission, speaks during a news conference at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 16, 2026. Credit: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

NASA’s leaders are eager for Artemis II to fly. NASA is not only racing China, a reality the agency’s former administrator acknowledged during the Biden administration. Now, the Trump administration is pushing NASA to accomplish a human landing on the Moon by the end of his presidential term on January 20, 2029.

One of Honeycutt’s jobs as chair of the Mission Management Team (MMT) is ensuring all the Is are dotted and Ts are crossed amid the frenzy of final launch preparations. While the hardware for Artemis II is on the move in Florida, the astronauts and flight controllers are wrapping up their final training and simulations at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“I think I’ve got a good eye for launch fever,” he said Friday.

“As chair of the MMT, I’ve got one job, and it’s the safe return of Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy. I consider that a duty and a trust, and it’s one I intend to see through.”

Managers on alert for “launch fever” as pressure builds for NASA’s Moon mission Read More »

Trump commits to Moon landing by 2028, followed by a lunar outpost two years later

2028, artemis, isaacman, Space, space policy, Trump / Tim Belzer / December 18, 2025

Strikingly, there is no mention of a concrete plan to send humans to Mars in this document. There are just two references to the red planet, both of which talk about sending humans there as a far-off goal. One source recently told Ars that as soon as Trump learned there was no way humans could land on Mars during his second term, he was no longer interested in that initiative.

OMB in the picture

Also absent from this document is much reference to space science, with only a mention of “optimizing space research-and-development investments to achieve my Administration’s near-term space objectives.”

The architect of the Trump Administration’s proposed deep cuts in space science (which Congress has largely forestalled) was Russ Vought, head of the Office of Management and Budget. It’s probably not a great indicator for science missions that Isaacman is directed to coordinate with Vought’s office to achieve policy objectives in the executive order.

All told, the policies Trump signed are generally forward-looking, seeking to modernize NASA’s exploration efforts. Isaacman will face many challenges, including landing humans on the Moon by 2028 and working with industry to develop an on-time successor to the International Space Station. Whether and how he meets these challenges will be an intriguing storyline in the coming months and years.

Trump commits to Moon landing by 2028, followed by a lunar outpost two years later Read More »