Artemis II mission was the warm-up act for a 2028 moon landing. Will it happen?

Beside a series of pre-launch delays and a few minor in-flight wobbles, NASA’s recently completed Artemis II mission, which took four astronauts on a record-setting journey beyond the moon and back, was a smash success.

The first crewed flight of the newly developed Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule broke the distance record for human spaceflight, proved out many of the SLS/Orion package’s capabilities and re-ignited a global public interest in manned spaceflight.

It also marked a significant advancement of NASA’s ambitious plans, revamped and accelerated in an announcement earlier this year by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman. NASA not only wants to return astronauts to the moon’s surface in 2028 but begin the work to establish a permanent base on the moon through frequent trips ferrying equipment and personnel to Earth’s sole satellite.

What’s next for NASA?

In a series of interviews Monday, Isaacman celebrated the success of Artemis II and foreshadowed the U.S. space agency’s next steps in a $20 billion effort to make the moon a jumping off point for a future mission to Mars.

“There is no better time to be at NASA right now than when you have a national space policy the president put in place my first day in office, which says not just return to the moon; do it with frequency,” Isaacman said in a Good Morning America interview on Monday.

“So let’s get America back in the business of launching moon rockets and when you get back to the moon, don’t just do it for the flags and footprints,” he said. “Build the base, establish the enduring presence for all its scientific value to be the technological proving ground for all the skills we’re going to have to master to some day send astronauts to Mars and bring them back home safely.”

The updated timeline for NASA’s Artemis program follows benchmarks mandated in an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in December in which he called for “returning Americans to the moon by 2028 through the Artemis Program” and “establishing initial elements of a permanent lunar outpost by 2030 to ensure a sustained American presence in space and enable the next steps in Mars exploration.”

And while the success of the Artemis II mission keeps NASA on track for a 2028 lunar landing, according to Isaacman, experts have warned the technological advances needed to accomplish that goal are likely further away then the current mission schedule suggests.

Are NASA’s plans overly ambitious?

One of the key next steps in paving the way for returning humans to the moon is a planned Artemis III in 2027 that will test the ability of Orion to rendezvous and dock with future lunar landing vehicles, currently being developed under NASA contracts with SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Both companies, according to findings released earlier this year by NASA’s independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, are running well behind schedule in their efforts to develop the new spacecraft, which NASA has dubbed Human Landing Systems, that would link up with the Orion capsule and carry astronauts to the surface of the moon. 

“Over the past year, programmatic and technical risks with these systems have continued to emerge and affect the overall Artemis III schedule and risk management,” the report reads. “This is especially evident with the HLS, given its intricate operational design, complex concept of operations, and challenges during their ongoing flight test program. Taken together, these difficulties cast doubt on the current Artemis III timeline and the feasibility of the Artemis III mission goals.”

A Space Policy Online assessment of the report notes that aerospace advisory panel analysts specifically called out the development progress of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle, currently slated to carry astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon in 2028’s Artemis IV mission.

“It is early 2026 and Starship has yet to reach earth orbit,” Space Policy Online’s analysis reads. “The 11 test flights to date have had mixed success and even though the last two did well, SpaceX is about to introduce a new version, V3, which may have its own growing pains. The company’s main goal is using Starship for launching thousands of new, more capable generation of Starlink broadband Internet satellites.”

NASA’s Safety Advisory Panel suggests that Artemis III and subsequent missions “combine too many first-time systems and operations into a single flight” and that stacking up so many untested processes “materially elevates mission risk and reduces margin.”

“The panel recommended redistributing objectives across missions, adopting a more deliberate test-flight cadence modeled on Apollo-era practices, and ensuring that schedule pressure does not override prudent risk reduction,” the report reads. 

NASA has big plans but shrinking budget

In addition to issues being raised about the pace of NASA’s launch schedule for upcoming Artemis missions, federal lawmakers are questioning funding reductions in Trump’s fiscal 2027 budget proposal. 

That budget framework, released earlier this month, proposes to slash NASA’s 2026 fiscal allotment by 23%, albeit protecting funding dedicated for the lunar landing efforts. The cuts proposed in Trump’s budget include a $3.4 billion reduction targeting 40 “low-priority missions” under NASA’s Science division, a $1.1 billion cut to previously planned efforts related to the soon-to-be-retired International Space Station and other program reductions.

At the annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Sunday, Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., who who serves as the chair of the Senate Appropriations Commerce, Justice and Science subcommittee which oversees NASA, said he’d like to reverse the president’s proposed cuts budget and maintain NASA’s funding at about the same level as the current year.

“I think it would be a mistake to put money only in the missions related to exploration and not into science and the others,” Moran said per a report from Space News. “I wouldn’t start with the premise that exploration is the only important aspect of the budget.”

Other lawmakers have also shared their opposition to the proposed NASA cuts.

Reps. Judy Chu, D-Calif., and Don Bacon, R-Neb., the co-chairs of the Congressional Planetary Science Caucus, also opposed the budget in an April 9 statement, per Space News.

“We are deeply alarmed that the administration is once again proposing significant budget cuts to NASA and its science programs,” they stated. “These drastic cuts would create enormous chaos and uncertainty for critical missions, the scientific workforce and long-term research planning.” 

Other reading: Artemis II astronauts channel Apollo 8 with a striking Earthset photo