Artemis 3

Artemis 3 (officially Artemis III) is planned as the first crewed Moon landing mission of the Artemis program and the first crewed flight of the Starship HLS lander. Artemis 3 is planned to be the second crewed Artemis mission and the first American crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17 in December 1972. As of 2023, the mission is scheduled for December 2025.
In August 2023, due to delays in the development of Starship, NASA officials expressed an openness to flying Artemis 3 without a crewed landing. In this case, the mission may become a crewed visit to the Lunar Gateway.
Overview
The goal of Artemis 3 is to land a crew at the Moon's south polar region. The mission would see two astronauts land on the surface of the Moon for a stay of about one week. It is also intended to be the first mission to land a woman and a person of color on the Moon. While up to four astronauts would launch aboard Orion, only two would land on the surface aboard Starship HLS, with the others remaining aboard Orion. The two astronauts will conduct up to four spacewalks on the Moon's surface, performing a variety of scientific observations, including sampling water ice. Before the Artemis 3 landing, some additional equipment will be pre-positioned on the surface, including an unpressurized rover for astronauts to use during their lunar excursions. This rover will have the capability to be controlled remotely. Several permanently shadowed regions could be reached by short forays of , well within the range of the rover.
Spacecraft
Space Launch System
The Space Launch System is a super-heavy-lift launcher used to launch the Orion spacecraft from Earth to a trans-lunar orbit. This will be the final mission using SLS Block 1, the design used for the first three missions. Afterward, from Artemis 4 until Artemis 8, missions will use SLS Block 1B, with a more capable Exploration Upper Stage, and a cargo hold to transport other payloads.
Orion
Orion is the crew transport vehicle used by all Artemis missions. It will transport the crew from Earth to lunar orbit, dock with Starship HLS, and return the crew back to Earth.
Starship HLS, depot, and tankers
After a multi-phase design effort, on 16 April 2021, NASA selected SpaceX to develop Starship HLS and deliver it to near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) prior to arrival of the crew for use on the Artemis 3 mission. The delivery requires that Starship HLS be refueled in Earth orbit before boosting to the NRHO, and this refueling requires a pre-positioned propellant depot in Earth orbit that is filled by multiple tanker flights. Two astronauts will transfer from Orion to Starship HLS, which will descend to the lunar surface and sustain them for several days before returning them to Orion. Following the return of the astronauts, Starship HLS will be disposed of by sending it into heliocentric orbit.
Development
Upon the December 2017 ratification of the Trump administration's Space Policy Directive 1, a crewed lunar campaign – later known as the Artemis program – utilising the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) and a space station in lunar orbit was established. Originally billed as Exploration Mission-3 (EM-3), the goal of the mission was to send four astronauts into a near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon and deliver the ESPRIT and U.S. Utilization Module to the lunar space station, known as the Gateway. By May 2019 however, ESPRIT and the U.S. Utilization Module – now called HALO – were re-manifested to fly separately on a commercial launch vehicle instead. Artemis 3, as it was now billed, was repurposed to accelerate the first crewed lunar landing of the Artemis program by the end of 2024, with a profile that would've seen the Orion MPCV rendezvous with a minimal Gateway made up of only the Power and Propulsion Element and a small habitat/docking node with an attached commercially-procured lunar lander known as the Human Landing System (HLS).
By early 2020, plans for Orion and the HLS to rendezvous with the Gateway were abandoned in favour of direct docking of Orion and HLS, and delivery of the Gateway after Artemis 3.
On 10 August 2021, an Office of Inspector General audit reported a conclusion that the spacesuits would not be ready until April 2025 at the earliest, likely delaying the mission from the planned late 2024 launch date. Prada, alongside Axiom Space, will help design the space suits.
On 9 November 2021, the Administrator of NASA Bill Nelson confirmed that Artemis 3 will take place no earlier than 2025.
, Artemis 3 was scheduled to launch no earlier than December 2025. In June 2023, Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems development, said that launch would "probably" be no earlier than 2026.
References
External links
Orion website at nasa.gov
Space Launch System website at nasa.gov
2025 in spaceflight
Artemis program
Crewed missions to the Moon
Orion (spacecraft)
Space Launch System
2025 in the United States
Missions to the Moon
Crewed spacecraft
Future human spaceflights
Lunar Gateway