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Space Mission: Artemis
Brief
Tracking the progress of NASA's Artemis program: launch and test dates, results, official statements from the operating agency. Not needed: fan speculation about future plans without official confirmation.
Description
The Artemis program has recalibrated toward a more methodical, risk-managed pace — inserting an additional demonstration mission before attempting a crewed lunar landing — while becoming more dependent on commercial partners' own timelines to stay on track.
Artemis I: Uncrewed Test Flight
Artemis I, an uncrewed integrated flight test of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, launched on November 16, 2022, testing Orion's systems — particularly its heat shield — over a journey of more than 1.4 million miles around the Moon. Orion splashed down successfully on December 11, 2022, after 25 days, 10 hours, and 53 minutes.
Artemis II: First Crewed Lunar Flyby
Artemis II, the program's first crewed mission, launched on April 1, 2026, sending four astronauts — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch (NASA), and Jeremy Hansen (CSA) — on a roughly 10-day lunar flyby to validate Orion's systems and crew operations in deep space. The crew set the record for farthest humans have traveled from Earth, and the mission concluded with a splashdown on April 10, 2026.
Artemis III: Revised to Earth-Orbit Demonstration
Artemis III's plan has changed: rather than the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17, it is now a crewed demonstration mission in low Earth orbit, targeted for late 2027, focused on rendezvous and docking between Orion and test versions of commercial Human Landing System spacecraft (a Blue Origin lander test vehicle and a SpaceX Starship test article). Its crew — Commander Randy Bresnik, Pilot Luca Parmitano (ESA), and Mission Specialists Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas — was announced June 9, 2026.
Future Missions and Partners
Artemis IV (targeted early 2028) is now planned as the first crewed lunar landing since 1972; Artemis V (late 2028) would be the second landing and begin work on a permanent lunar base. The program is the largest peacetime international coalition around a single space effort, involving ESA, JAXA, the Canadian Space Agency, and other Artemis Accords signatories.