NASA’s Artemis program promises to usher in a new age of space exploration.

Did you know that Neil Armstrong was the first human to set foot on the moon in 1969? Of course you did, but did you also know that no human has been on the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, with Eugene Cernan being the last human to set foot on the lunar surface? Perhaps you did, but I did not until fairly recently. This then sent me on a mission across the internet to find out if there were more plans for humans to walk on the moon again. Fortunately, it didn’t take long to find out about NASA’s Artemis program, the administration’s follow-up to the Apollo program of fifty years ago.

Founded in 2017, NASA’s website has this to say about Artemis:
Under Artemis, NASA will send astronauts on increasingly difficult missions to explore more of the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build on our foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.

Essentially, NASA plans to establish a research base on the moon with a permanent human presence, much like the current International Space Station (ISS), and consider this program to be a precursor to future planned expeditions to Mars (I just got shivers writing that, this is so exciting!). There are currently four Artemis missions planned:

• Artemis I, which used the scrapped 2016 Space Launch System (SLS) Orion spacecraft, launched in 2022 carrying robots and mannequins as a test drive.
• Artemis II is currently due to launch next month (March 2026, weather- and safety tests-permitting) with four crew members. They will head to the moon and back on a free-return trajectory (using the moon’s gravity to send it back to Earth) and in doing so will be going the furthest any human has ever been from Earth. The whole trip should take ten days, according to NASA. The aim of this mission is to test the Orion spacecraft, communications and how the crew fare in general, as well as to gather mass amounts of data relating to space travel, the moon, etc.
• Artemis III will build on the crewed Artemis II flight test, adding new capabilities with the human landing system and advanced spacesuits to send the first humans to explore the lunar South Pole region. This mission plans to land two astronauts at the South Pole of the moon (with the other two orbiting) and will take about thirty days. The planned launch for Artemis III is 2028.
• Artemis IV: Astronauts on Artemis IV will live and work in humanity’s first lunar space station, Gateway, which will enable new opportunities for science and preparation for human missions to Mars. This will be the pre-cursor to a permanent human presence on the moon as a space station is established in its orbit and astronauts are sent to and from the lunar surface. No specific date has been set for its launch as of yet.

According to Wikipedia, Artemis V and Artemis VI are also in the works, with yearly landings on the moon expected post-Artemis VI, but I can’t find anything specific on NASA’s website yet, other than:
With Artemis, NASA will establish long-term lunar exploration for scientific discovery and prepare for human missions to Mars. The agency’s SLS rocket, Orion spacecraft, and supporting ground systems, along with the human landing system, next-generation spacesuits and rovers, and Gateway are NASA’s foundation for deep space exploration. 

I don’t know about you, but I find this all incredibly exciting. I’ve always found space exploration and cosmology to be fascinating (and exceedingly terrifying), and to be around in this age of exploration is quite a privilege. I have to admit though, it is a little annoying that SpaceX is involved – Elon Musk isn’t exactly the world’s favourite person – but it is important to remember all the people who have worked tirelessly towards building the technology necessary for progress in space exploration. Fortunately, NASA do also believe in working together on a global scale: While maintaining American leadership in exploration, we will build a global alliance and explore deep space for the benefit of all. I hope that people like Musk (someone whom I was once a huge admirer of, thinking he could be someone the world could look up to as a pioneer of space travel and electric power – boy, were we wrong) come to realise there is more power in us working together for the greater good than using money and said power to keep us divided. Otherwise, what’s the point?

The Artemis Accords is a set of international agreements signed by the below countries (as of January 2026) which provide a common set of principles to enhance the governance of the civil exploration and use of outer space. If only the world could come together this peacefully for other reasons, too.