The signing ceremony was held at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Thursday (July 24), where Maram Kairé, Director-General of the Senegalese Space Study Agency (ASES), signed the Artemis Accords alongside Senegal's Ambassador to the United States, Abdoul Wahab Haidara. NASA Chief of Staff Brian Hughes and State Department official Jonathan Pratt represented the U.S.

"Following a meeting between Senegal President Faye and President Trump, today, NASA built upon the strong relations between our two nations as the Senegalese Agency for Space Studies signed the Artemis Accords," Sean Duffy, acting NASA Administrator, said in a statement from the space agency. "With Senegal as the 56th signatory, I am proud to further President Trump's strong legacy of global cooperation in space."

The Artemis Accords, established in October 2020 by the United States and seven other founding nations, set guiding principles to govern civil space activity, emphasizing peaceful use, transparency and preservation of lunar resources. They align with the tenets of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and are designed to support NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon by 2026 and prepare for future crewed missions to Mars.

Senegal is the latest African nation to sign, following Angola in 2023 and Nigeria and Rwanda in 2022. Though Senegal's space program is still in its early stages, having formed in 2023, the country launched its first nanosatellite, Gaindesat-1A, in 2024 to aid in agricultural planning and environmental monitoring.

"Senegal's adherence to the Artemis Accords reflects our commitment to a multilateral, responsible, and transparent approach to space," Kairé said in the statement. "This signature marks a meaningful step in our space diplomacy and in our ambition to contribute to the peaceful exploration of outer space."

Senegal has been steadily expanding its involvement in space science, including supporting NASA missions through ground-based observations of asteroid and planetary occultations. In 2021, NASA partnered with Kairé and local scientists to track asteroid Orus as it passed in front of a star, helping estimate its size and shape ahead of the Lucy spacecraft's planned flyby in 2028.

The growing list of Artemis Accords signatories underscores increasing global consensus on the need for responsible and collaborative exploration beyond Earth, as well as ensuring that the future of space benefits all of humanity.

The nation wants to build a moon base by 2045, The Korea Times reported on Thursday (July 17), citing a long-term exploration road map that the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) laid out that same day during a hearing at the National Research Foundation of Korea in Daejeon.

That road map "outlines five core missions, including low Earth orbit and microgravity exploration, lunar exploration, and solar and space science missions," The Korea Times wrote.

KASA, which was established just last year, aims to develop homegrown lunar landing and roving technology, as well as the ability to extract and exploit moon resources such as water ice.

Some of this work is already underway. For example, the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources recently deployed prototype lunar rovers in an abandoned coal mine, testing tech that could be used for space mining down the road.

And South Korea already has some experience at and around the moon. In August 2022, the nation launched its first moon probe — called the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter or Danuri — atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Danuri reached lunar orbit four months later and is still going strong, studying the moon with its suite of instruments.

South Korea had already been aiming for the lunar surface; officials have said they want to put a robotic lander on the moon by 2032. But the newly revealed road map ups the ante. The nation plans to develop a new, presumably more capable moon lander by 2040, "with the goal of building a lunar economic base by 2045," The Korea Times wrote.

South Korea isn't the only nation with moon-base ambitions. The United States also plans to build one or more lunar outposts in the next decade or so, via NASA's Artemis program. China is working toward the goal as well, in partnership with Russia and other nations. And India has said it wants to build a moon base by 2047.

The moon isn't KASA's only distant destination, by the way; the agency also wants to pull off South Korea's first-ever Mars landing by 2045.

What is it?

The massive, dark circular payload adapter was carefully lowered from Test Stand 4697 to Test Stand 4705 for storage, after successfully completing initial structural tests. The next stage is for flight engineers to run quality checks on the adapter before building the final device.

The payload adapter plays an important role in spacecraft launches, as it connects the spacecraft or satellite to a launch vehicle. Without an adapter, the two parts of the spacecraft can't interface.

Where is it?

The payload adapter was initially tested and is being stored at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Why is it amazing?

The payload adapter is just one piece of equipment that is being tested as part of NASA's planned Artemis IV mission. This crewed lunar mission will focus on the first lunar space station, Gateway, according to NASA. The international hub will allow astronauts to study both the moon and the planets beyond, especially Mars.

To get the astronauts to Gateway, NASA plans to launch the crew using the Orion spacecraft with an upgraded SLS rocket. Before that happens, all launch materials, from boosters to payload adapters, have to be thoroughly tested and cleared for takeoff.

Want to learn more?

You can read more about the upcoming Artemis IV mission and the Gateway hub on the moon.

Let's take a closer look at the positives first. The bill contains special provisions for NASA's Artemis moon program, which seeks to return astronauts to the surface of the moon. Artemis 1, an uncrewed mission that took a jaunt around the moon, has already flown — as things stand, Artemis 2 is scheduled for launch in the first half of 2026 and will send astronauts on a flyby mission around the moon. Artemis 3 is planned to be the first lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.

However, beyond these three missions, the new bill makes $4.1 billion available for two new lunar landings, Artemis 4 and Artemis 5, splitting that money into just over a billion dollars that can be spent each year for 2026, 2027, 2028 and 2029. There is also another $20 million set aside for the procurement of the Orion space capsule from Lockheed Martin.

Then, there's $2.6 billion allotted for development of the Lunar Gateway station, a proposed outpost that would be set up in orbit around the moon and act as a way-station for missions in the Earth–moon system and beyond. In March, the current administration proposed cutting Artemis and Gateway from its Financial Year (FY) 2026 budget, effectively cancelling the Artemis program after Artemis 3 and relying on private companies to take humans back to the moon. The addition of funding for both in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is therefore something of a turnaround, an amendment to the Act initiated by Republican senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

There will also be $1.25 billion, split into $250 million each year for the years 2025–2029, dedicated to keeping the International Space Station running ahead of its retirement in the early 2030s. The Act also calls for $700 million to fund a high-performance Mars Telecommunications Orbiter, to be procured from a U.S. commercial provider no later than December 31, 2028 which the Act specifies as being "capable of providing robust, continuous communications for a Mars sample-return mission ... [and] future Mars surface, orbital, and human exploration mission."

These plans, however, appear to be at odds with the administration's proposed FY 2026 budget, which seeks to gut NASA's science missions, including the Mars sample-return mission.

The FY 2026 budget proposes to cut NASA's overall funding by 24%, from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion, but the cuts would not be spread evenly across the agency. The Science Mission Directorate would take one of the hardest hits, with its funding slashed by 47%. As a result, around half of NASA's science missions either in development or in operation would be cancelled. Among the threatened missions are the Juno mission presently at Jupiter, New Horizons that's on its way out of the solar system, the two proposed Venus missions DAVINCI and VERITAS and Mars Sample Return, for which samples are already waiting to be picked up from the surface of the Red Planet thanks to the Perseverance rover.

In response, a joint statement has been issued by all the surviving former heads of NASA's Science Mission Directorate — Alphonso Diaz, John Grunsfeld, Lennard Fisk, Wesley Huntress, Alan Stern, Edward Weiler and Thomas Zurbuchen — requesting that the government rethink the proposed cuts.

In their statement, they highlight NASA's science achievements, from the Mars rovers to the James Webb Space Telescope (neither of which are currently under threat, though the JWST could indirectly experience some major effects), and their concern that the budget cuts could see the United States hand its leadership in space science over to China.

They write that the proposed budget "walks away from dozens of current, extraordinarily successful and productive science missions in extended operations on a combined budget that is only about three per cent of NASA's annual funding."

The threat isn't just to NASA-led missions. The financial budget also calls for the cancellation of NASA contributions to missions by other space agency's, such as an astrobiology instrument and the launch vehicle for the European Space Agency's Rosalind Franklin Mars rover.

"The proposed cuts would force the U.S. to abandon its international partners who historically contribute significantly to U.S. space science missions," the former heads write.

Meanwhile, the government is continuing with plans to axe these missions even ahead of the FY 2026 bill being signed into law. According to Ars Technica, scientists on dozens of missions have been asked by NASA leadership to provide a "close-out" plan ahead of cancellation, with the assumption that this will happen on Oct. 1, which is the beginning of the next fiscal year in the U.S.

All in all, for now, it seems that crewed spaceflight is the winner, while the consequences for NASA's science missions remain muddled and potentially catastrophic.

The full text of the Act can be read on the U.S. Senate website.

An upgraded version of one of the solid rocket boosters being used for NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) experienced an anomaly during a test June 26.

The Demonstration Motor-1 (DM-1) Static Test took place at Northrop Grumman's facility in Promontory, Utah, simulating a launch-duration burn lasting about two minutes. It was the first demonstration of Grumman's Booster Obsolescence and Life Extension (BOLE) upgrade, an enhanced five-segmented motor designed with greater lifting power for later versions of SLS.

Shortly after the spokesperson on Grumman's recording marks T+100 seconds into the test, an outburst of flames can be seen erupting form the top of the engine nozzle. A few seconds later, as another spokesperson announces, "activate aft deluge," an even larger burst comes from the rocket's exhaust, blowing nearby debris into the flames and around the test site.

"Whoa," one of the test operators said as burn continued, before audibly gasping. Beyond that in-the-moment reaction, though, the anomaly was not acknowledged during the remainder of the test, which seemed to conclude as planned.

"While the motor appeared to perform well through the most harsh environments of the test, we observed an anomaly near the end of the two-plus minute burn. As a new design, and the largest segmented solid rocket booster ever built, this test provides us with valuable data to iterate our design for future developments," Jim Kalberer, Grumman's vice president of propulsion systems, said in a statement.

SLS, NASA's rocket supporting the agency's Artemis program, was designed on the foundation of legacy systems used during the space shuttle era. SLS's core stage fuel tank is an augmented version of the one used to launch space shuttles, and the same RS-25 engines responsible for launching the space shuttles are launching to space again on SLS missions. The segments from the shuttle's solid rocket boosters are also flying again, too.

Northrop Grumman supported Artemis 1, and will support Artemis 2 and Artemis 3 with shuttle-era hardware, before transitioning to newer hardware for Artemis 4 through Artemis 8. The company's BOLE engines aren't slated to be introduced for launch until Artemis 9, on the SLS Block 2.

The upgraded BOLE engines include improved, newly-fabricated parts replacing those no longer in production, carbon fiber composite casings and updated propellant efficiencies that increase the booster's performance more than 10 percent compared to the solid rocket engines being used on earlier SLS launches.

Thursday's DM-1 BOLE test included more than 700 points of data collection throughout the booster, which produced over 4 million pounds of thrust, according to Northrop Grumman.

Whether the BOLE design will ever fly, however, is far from certain. NASA's proposed budget for 2026 calls for the cancelation of the SLS rocket following Artemis 3.

What is it?

Crew members assigned to the Artemis 2 mission practice with mannequins inside the Crew Module Test Article (CMTA), a full-scale mockup of the Orion spacecraft, as it falls into Floridian waters as a part of a recovery procedure for a launch pad abort scenario.

Where is it?

The module was recovered off the coast of Florida near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center.

Why is it amazing?

The Artemis 2 mission is part of a decades long legacy in NASA's attempts to return to the moon. It will be the "first crewed mission on NASA's path to establishing a long-term presence at the moon, according to NASA.

Building on the work of the Artemis 1 mission, which launched in 2022, Artemis 2 will send four crew members aboard the Orion spacecraft around the moon for 10 days. During this time the crew will be able to test the spacecraft to all the systems operate to keep humans alive in the deep space environment.

Unfortunately, there are many things that can happen to stop the launch from happening, and the crew needs to be prepared for all scenarios. Working with the Department of Defense, along with NASA's flight control teams, the Artemis 2 crew members rehearse a launch pad abort scenario, using mannequins. While the mission is still several months away, running through all emergency procedures allows the team to be as prepared as possible for launch day.

Want to learn more?

You can read more about the Artemis 2 mission and returning to the moon as the project's launch date gets closer.

Those directives make beating China to the moon and Mars a priority; the proposal dedicates nearly $10 billion over current levels to "win the new space race with China and ensure America dominates space."

It also makes funds tech designed to enable future Mars mission, key aspects of NASA's Artemis lunar program, the agency moon-to-Mars program and the International Space Station (ISS).

Details, details, details

A key piece of the new proposal called Section 0005 would provide $9.995 billion for fiscal year 2025, as supplemental funding for critical infrastructure in these areas. Here's where most of this proposed money would go:

• Mars Telecommunications Orbiter: $700 million for the commercial procurement of a Mars Telecommunications Orbiter. This orbiter would be dual-use; it would aid NASA's Mars Sample Return campaign to haul core samples of Mars to Earth and future crewed Mars missions as well. (President Trump's 2026 budget request cancels Mars Sample Return.)
• Gateway: $2.6 billion to fully fund the moon-orbiting space station known as Gateway, which is currently a key part of NASA's Artemis architecture. (President Trump's 2026 budget proposal cancels Gateway.)
• Space Launch System: $4.1 billion to fund Space Launch System (SLS) rockets for the Artemis 4 and Artemis 5 missions. SLS is the only operational, human-rated rocket that can get astronauts to the moon, as Cruz's new proposal notes. This funding would not prevent the on-ramping of commercial rockets — such as SpaceX's Starship, which is still in development — if and when they become available.
• Orion Crew Vehicle: $20 million to fund the continued procurement of the fourth Orion capsule, for use with SLS for Artemis 4 and reuse on subsequent Artemis missions. (The White House's proposed 2026 budget cancels both SLS and Orion after the Artemis 3 moon-landing mission, which is slated to launch in 2027.)
• International Space Station: $1.25 billion for ISS operations over five years. This would keep the orbiting lab going through the planned end of its life in 2030 and help ensure an orderly transition to private space stations in low Earth orbit after that.
• U.S. Deorbit Vehicle: $325 million to fund the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, which will bring the ISS down safely at the end of its operational life. In 2024, NASA selected NASA selected SpaceX to build this spacecraft.

NASA centers

The bill would provide $1 billion for infrastructure improvements at NASA's human spaceflight centers.

NASA’s infrastructure backlog across all of its centers is above $5 billion, according to the newly released document. The $1 billion in center funding would focus on the agency's human spaceflight centers, and on the infrastructure needed to beat China to Mars and the moon.

Here are the details:

• Stennis Space Center: $120 million for infrastructure repairs and upgrades. Stennis is the home of NASA’s rocket engine testing for the heavy-lift rocket engines necessary to get to deep space.
• Kennedy Space Center: $250 million for infrastructure repairs. KSC is NASA’s premier launch complex and the site from which every NASA astronaut has been sent to space.
• Johnson Space Center: $300 million for infrastructure repairs and upgrades. JSC is home to mission control, the astronaut corps, and overall space operations.
• Marshall Space Flight Center: $100 million for infrastructure repairs and upgrades. Marshall is NASA’s main home for propulsion research.
• Michoud Assembly Facility: $30 million for infrastructure repairs and upgrades.

Timelines

Section 0005 also requires that at least 50% of the funds be obligated no later than Sept. 30, 2028; 100% of them no later than Sept. 30, 2029; and all associated outlays no later than Sept. 30, 2034.

The Congressional Budget Office preliminarily estimates that $9.96 billion will be obligated and expended within a 10-year window.

You can read the text of the bill here.

The SpaceX founder and CEO recently wrapped up his 130-day appointment as a "special government employee," during which he led the cost- and regulation-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Musk and President Donald Trump seemingly parted on a positive note, sharing kind words about each other during an Oval Office press conference on May 30. "Today, it's about a man named Elon," Trump said to reporters last week, calling Musk "one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced."

But their public relationship began to sour shortly thereafter, following Musk's criticism of Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill."

"This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it," Musk said via X on Tuesday (June 3).

Trump fired back, posting on his social media site Truth Social today (June 5) that "Elon was 'wearing thin,' and I asked him to leave."

The president followed that with another post, which said that the United States could save money by canceling government contracts and subsidies awarded to Musk's companies. In response to this threat, Musk shot back with one of his own.

"In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately," Musk posted on X, which he bought back in 2022, when it was still called Twitter.

It's hard to say when or how this spat will play out, but the current trajectory could point to a bleak outcome for American spaceflight.

Cancelation of SpaceX's government contracts would eliminate the country's ability to launch astronauts to space from American soil. SpaceX's crew and cargo Dragon spacecraft variants have changed the landscape of NASA operations aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and ushered in a new era of U.S. spaceflight.

The decommissioning of Dragon — if Musk was indeed serious about doing so, and not just calling Trump's bluff — would spell the virtual end of U.S.-based astronaut launches during one of the space station's most robust, traffic-heavy phases of operation — an absence that would likely be irreparable in the timeframe leading up to the space station's own decommissioning in 2030, which SpaceX has also been hired to oversee.

And, while Boeing's Starliner spacecraft has the potential to fill Dragon's crew-carrying shoes, it has faced a series of problems; Starliner is not yet certified to fly operational astronaut missions and is still several months away from launching again.

Some of SpaceX's more substantial government contracts include NASA's Commercial Crew Program and cargo resupply services for the ISS and the space station's deorbit vehicle. NASA also picked SpaceX's next-gen Starship spacecraft to be the first crewed lunar lander for its Artemis moon program. If all goes as planned, Starship will put NASA astronauts down on the moon for the first time in 2027, on the Artemis 3 mission. The cessation of these contracts — alongside the nearly 25% cut to NASA's overall budget and roughly 50% cut to its science programs that the White House has proposed for 2026 — could mark the end of NASA as we currently know it.

One Crew Dragon is currently docked at the ISS; it's in the middle of SpaceX's Crew-10 astronaut mission for NASA. The next Dragon in NASA's commercial crew lineup is slated to launch the Crew-11 mission no earlier than July. However, that mission may now be in jeopardy, along with many others.

It's unclear, however, what a decommissioning of Dragon would mean for SpaceX's other private spaceflight endeavors. Houston-based company Axiom Space is just days away from launching its fourth private astronaut mission to the ISS aboard a brand-new Dragon spacecraft, which was delivered to its launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center this week. SpaceX also recently carried out the first human spaceflight in a polar orbit around Earth as part of the private Fram2 astronaut mission, and broke similar ground with the first private spacewalk during the Polaris Dawn mission last September.

That mission was part of Jared Isaacman's Polaris Program, which aims to expand the field of private spaceflight. Isaacman is a billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist who has used his two SpaceX spaceflights, Polaris Dawn and its predecessor mission Inspiration4, to raise money for Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Until recently, Isaacman was Trump's pick to become NASA administrator, and was expected to be confirmed by Congress this week. But the White House unexpectedly pulled his nomination over the weekend, possibly signaling the widening divide between President and Musk.

In an emailed response to Space.com regarding Trump's suggestion to cancel government contracts for Musk's companies, and to Musk's directive for SpaceX to decommission Dragon, NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens said, "NASA will continue to execute upon the President’s vision for the future of space. We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the President’s objectives in space are met."

Several hours later Thursday evening, Musk replied to an X post suggesting he and Trump both "cool off and take a step back for a couple of days." In response, Musk said, "Good advice. Ok, we won’t decommission Dragon."

Editor's note: This story was updated June 6 to include Elon Musk's post reversing his decision to decommission Dragon.

When Neil Armstrong clambered down the Eagle's lander to take his "one giant leap" in 1969, it was captured by a black-and-white slow-scan television (SSTV) with a resolution of a mere 320 lines and 10 frames per second. The transmission, beamed back via NASA's Deep Space Network, was sketchy, plagued by ghosts and poor contrast. The available 900 to 1,000 kiloHertz bandwidth just wasn't sufficient to transmit in color. Things improved slightly with Apollo 12, which had a wider 2 to 3 megaHertz bandwidth that permitted color footage — at least until the video camera was accidentally pointed at the sun, the solar intensity damaging its vacuum tube.

Soon, NASA's Artemis crewed moon missions will be flying with high-definition and ultra-high definition color cameras with frame rates of up to 60 per second. But even though the technology has dramatically improved since 1969, there remain many challenges for successfully documenting a lunar landing on video. Bandwidth continues to be one of these challenges, as does the 1.3-second signal delay from the moon, dealing with bright sunlight starkly reflecting off the lunar surface, and moon dust that seems to be able to find its way into every nook and cranny.

Therefore, taking detailed images and video footage of activities on the lunar surface and transmitting them back to Earth, all within the constraints of these challenges, is an acquired skill. We can't yet just pop to the moon to practice, so the next best thing is to simulate the environment of the moon somewhere on Earth.

Indeed, this is the purpose of the LUNA facility in Cologne, Germany, which is a joint project between ESA and the German Aerospace Center (known by its German acronym DLR). The idea is to create a lunar environment that is as realistic as possible for testing robotic landers, training astronauts and practicing with equipment — including, in this case, cameras.

To that end, imaging experts from the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS), which features representatives from 28 countries, have convened on LUNA to practice shooting astronauts playing make-believe in a simulated lunar environment.

Spending time at LUNA gave imaging expert Melanie Cowan, who is ESA's representative on the CCSDS' Motion Imagery and Applications Working Group team, "a glimpse of what it may be like on the moon," she said in a statement. "One cannot get any closer to the real thing. It was a special and challenging experience to film and photograph in this surreal environment."

Indeed, so realistic was this pretend moon that Cowan and fellow imaging experts had to wear protective clothing to prevent the simulated lunar dust from being breathed in, or getting in their hair or on their clothes. Dust could be a major problem for astronauts spending any appreciable time on the surface; it is so fine that it gets everywhere, sticking to surfaces and potentially clogging up equipment.

So, donned in their protective clothing reminiscent of the head-to-toe suits used in clean rooms, the imaging experts captured footage of astronauts descending from a mock lunar lander, exploring the surface and even taking a selfie — something that Neil Armstrong may have wished he'd had the opportunity to do. (There are famously few images of Armstrong on the moon, since he carried the Hasselblad camera during most of his and Buzz Aldrin's historic moonwalk.) The point behind taking the selfie was to see how much detail could be captured in the reflection on the visor of the astronaut's helmet.

The resulting images and video are intended to be used as reference files for the real thing, so that astronauts and imaging technicians can better understand what camera settings to use, and how large the resulting image or video files might be when transmitted.

"These efforts should help agencies and companies create a ground truth for video applications and equipment," said Falk Schiffner, who is the DLR representative in the CCSDS Motion Imagery and Applications Working Group. "The activities to refine video quality are not geared only to moon imagery, but to all space transmissions."

Capturing good footage on the moon is not as easy as on Earth. For one thing, because there is no appreciable atmosphere on the moon to scatter sunlight, the contrast between areas directly illuminated by the sun and areas in black shadow can lead to over-exposed daylight areas and totally black shadowed regions. And the slow rise and setting of the sun over a two-week period from any given location results in slowly changing conditions. To replicate all of this at the LUNA facility required a lot of trial and error with camera angles and lighting.

"We tried different sun simulators and techniques to replicate the lighting of the sun on the moon," said Cowan. "We investigated the effects of the shadows from the rocks and inside craters. Early tests revealed that HDR video will provide more detail in shadowed areas on the lunar surface."

HDR stands for "high dynamic range," which can drastically improve the contrast ratio of an image, or boost its colors. Camera manufacturer Nikon has already teamed up with NASA to develop modified Nikon Z9 cameras to be used by astronauts should they land on the moon as part of the eventual Artemis 3 mission. The Nikon Z9 possesses both HDR and UHD (ultra-high definition) capabilities that will be essential for use in the strange, stark lunar landscape.

Taking an 8K UHD video camera to the moon is one thing, but transmitting all that data back to Earth in a livestream (or as live as it can be with the 1.3-second delay) has limitations in the available bandwidth. In particular, footage containing lots of motion is referred to as an "encoder killer," as it bumps the data rate way up. In practice, data transmission from the moon will be compressed, just as it already is from the International Space Station, for example, but even then methods will have to be found to squeeze it all into the available bandwidth without losing too much data.

Help may soon be coming thanks to ESA's Moonlight initiative, which plans to launch a constellation of five satellites into orbit around the moon. Four of these spacecraft will assist future missions with navigation, and the other will provide high-data-rate communications between the lunar surface, spacecraft in lunar orbit or traveling to the moon, and ground stations on Earth. The intent is for Moonlight to be fully operational by 2030.

One newly unveiled key element is the "Transporter," a vehicle that can be launched on a single Blue Origin New Glenn rocket into low Earth orbit. It will harvest leftover propellant from the booster's second stage and then haul the hydrogen and oxygen to lunar orbit.

Transporter is designed to lug roughly 110 tons (100 metric tons) from Earth orbit to lunar orbit. And in Mars mode, it will be able to haul 33 tons (30 metric tons) into orbit around the Red Planet.

Making its mark

Blue Origin is also busily developing a robotic lander called Mark 1, as well as a Mark 2 version able to land up to four astronauts on the moon, either to equatorial or polar sites, depending on NASA requirements. A Mark 2 cargo-toting version has also been scoped out.

Mark 1 is capable of landing up to 3.3 tons (3 metric tons) on the moon. The larger Mark 2 vehicle can land up to 22 tons (20 metric tons) in a reusable configuration, or up to 33 tons (30 metric tons) in a one-way configuration, making it brawny enough to deliver habit modules to the lunar surface.

The Mark 2 lander is being developed under NASA's NextSTEP-2 Appendix P Sustaining Lunar Development (SLD) contract.

Hardware rich

John Couluris, senior vice president of lunar permanence for Blue Origin, detailed the company's plans during a Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC) meeting held from May 20 to May 22 at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.

If we can open up the moon, Couluris said, it will become "our eventual hub for the rest of the solar system."

The pace of Blue Origin work on lunar hardware is palpable.

Couluris said Blue Origin is moving forward on becoming "hardware rich," with the firm's target to get the production line moving — to support reliable access to the moon in a low-cost manner.

Serial number one of the Mark 1 lunar lander, for example, is scheduled to fly to the moon's south pole for the first time this year.

If successful, Mark 1 would be the largest lander ever to touch down on the moon. Blue Origin is working with NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative to outfit that first craft with the space agency's Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS) system, which will gauge the effects of the lander's engine plume on the dusty, rock-strewn lunar surface.

"We are currently building two of these vehicles," Couluris said, "to get hardware rich."

First moonshot

Couluris underscored a key challenge that Blue Origin is working on — figuring out a way to make hydrogen and oxygen storable for appreciable lengths of time. These are the propellants for Blue Origin's BE engine line, which powers the Mark 1 and Mark 2 landers and the Transporter.

Success in this area would therefore be huge, Couluris said.

"This opens up the solar system," making the moon a kind of JFK airport, according to Couluris.

And Blue Origin is making serious progress on its lander propulsion system, he added.

"The build of this engine that's going to power our first Mark 1 is almost complete and will be integrated into the vehicle probably late summer," said Couluris.

At Blue Origin's facility in Washington state, the zero-boil-off technology is advancing, already demonstrated to work at temperatures of 20 Kelvin (minus 424 degrees Fahrenheit) and 90 Kelvin (minus 298 F) in the lab.

"We're making our first moonshot this year," said Jacqueline Cortese, senior director of civil space at Blue Origin. "Prior to the end of this decade, we will be landing two crews on the lunar surface" in partnership with NASA's Artemis program, she added.

Blue Origin self-funded the Mark 1. No government resources went into the vehicle, Cortese told the LSIC audience. "Ideally, we will have a successful first mission of Mark 1, then incorporate any findings and be ready to fly again," she said.

The Mark 1 will not only be the largest lander to ever touch down on the moon but also the only liquid oxygen/hydrogen-fueled lander to do so, Cortese said.

"So, please keep your fingers, toes — anything — crossed for a successful first Mark 1 mission this year," she said. "It's been a long time coming for a lot of people at Blue Origin."

Reinvent traditional aerospace

The moon is a stepping stone to Mars, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said at the 2025 Humans to the Moon and Mars Summit (H2M2), hosted by Explore Mars, Inc. and held May 28 to May 29 at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

"If we're going to get to Mars, the path to that is getting back to the moon, and in a permanent way," Limp said.

Limp also spotlighted Blue Origin's work on zero-boil-off technology and the firm's Transporter tanker. Lab demonstrations are "coming along really well," with the firm's first prototype cryo-cooler coming online in the next couple of months.

"I'm very optimistic that this is going to be a solved problem in the next year or two," said Limp.

Blue Origin is steadfast in its desire to dramatically lower the price of launching material from Earth, Limp said. And doing so means innovation by commercial companies, he added.

"We want to reinvent traditional aerospace," said Limp. "We want to go faster. We want to be more decisive. We want to do it in a more cost-effective way. You can't use the traditional aerospace playbook and do all those things."

Driving demand

Of similar view is Brian Ippolitto, senior director of operations at Marotta Controls, an innovative aerospace and defense company.

"Commercial space leaders are actively positioning themselves at the forefront of cislunar and lunar development," Ippolitto told Space.com.

"As they continue to design and build platforms capable of operating beyond low Earth orbit, they are driving demand for more advanced and reliable components that can endure the extreme conditions of deep space," said Ippolitto.

Among the most significant challenges ahead, Ippolitto pointed out, "are the requirements for colder operating temperatures and longer-duration missions — both critical to the success of sustained lunar presence."

Semafor reported on Saturday (May 31) that President Donald Trump is pulling the nomination of Isaacman, a billionaire tech entrepreneur and private astronaut who has commanded and funded two SpaceX missions to Earth orbit.

The White House confirmed the news shortly thereafter.

"The administrator of NASA will help lead humanity into space and execute President Trump's bold mission of planting the American flag on the planet Mars," White House spokesperson Liz Huston said in an emailed statement on Saturday.

"It's essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump's America First agenda, and a replacement will be announced directly by President Trump soon," she added.

The move comes as something of a surprise. Trump announced his choice of Jared Isaacman in December, before the president's inauguration, and the nominee seemed poised to be confirmed by Congress as soon as next week.

Huston's statement doesn't give an overt reason for dropping the 42-year-old Isaacman, the founder and CEO of the payment-processing company Shift4. But it implies that the White House doesn't think Isaacman is fully on board with Trump and his space priorities.

We got a detailed look at those priorities on Friday afternoon (May 30), when the White House released an in-depth version of its NASA budget request for the 2026 fiscal year.

The documents propose a $6 billion budget cut for the agency, from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion, with funding for NASA's science programs slashed by 47%.

Those numbers were first revealed about a month ago, when the White House released its summary-version "skinny budget" request. But the newly released documents lay out the consequences of the cuts, should they be enacted by Congress.

NASA's workforce would be reduced by nearly a third, for example, and dozens of the agency's science missions — including the Juno Jupiter orbiter, New Horizons Pluto probe and a number of other spacecraft that are currently gathering data in deep space — would be cancelled.

Isaacman's nomination was pulled just a day after Elon Musk's 130-day appointment as a "special government employee" came to an end.

Musk led the cost- and regulation-slashing Department of Government Efficiency while serving in that role. During a press conference at the White House on Friday (May 30), Musk said that he will remain an adviser to, and friend of, President Trump despite the loss of official status.

It's worth noting this quirk of timing, given that Isaacman has done business with SpaceX and Musk. But doing so is not to imply that Isaacman would have favored SpaceX as NASA chief.

Multiple Democratic senators questioned Isaacman about possible conflict-of-interest concerns during his nomination hearing before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation in April. Isaacman repeatedly stressed that he's not tight with Musk and that, if confirmed as agency chief, he would act solely in the best interests of NASA and the nation. The committee voted on April 30 to advance his nomination to the full Senate for confirmation.

Space.com Managing Editor Brett Tingley contributed to this story.

On May 2, the Trump administration released its 2026 "skinny budget" request, a broad summary of its funding plans for the coming fiscal year. That document proposed cutting NASA funding by nearly 25%, from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion, with much of the reduction coming from the agency's science programs.

On Friday afternoon (May 31), the White House published a more detailed version of the 2026 budget request, which shone more light on the administration's aims and the potential effects on NASA, its people and its mission portfolio.

The proposed budget top line is the same in the newly released documents, which you can find here: NASA is allocated $18.8 billion in fiscal year 2026, which runs from Oct. 1, 2025 through Sept. 30, 2026.

This would be the biggest single-year cut to NASA in history, and the 2026 funding would be the agency's lowest since 1961 when adjusted for inflation, according to The Planetary Society, a nonprofit exploration advocacy organization.

NASA science funding would be cut by 47% next year, to $3.9 billion — the same number provided by the skinny budget.

This would result in the cancellation of a number of high-profile missions and campaigns, according to the new documents. For example, Mars Sample Return — a project to haul home Red Planet material already collected by NASA's Perseverance rover — would get the axe. So would the New Horizons mission, which is exploring the outer solar system after acing its Pluto flyby in July 2015, and Juno, a probe that has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016.

Two orbiters that have been studying Mars for years — Mars Odyssey and MAVEN — would be cancelled, as would NASA's cooperation on Rosalind Franklin, a life-hunting rover that the European Space Agency plans to launch toward the Red Planet in 2028.

"In total, this budget aims to cancel 41 science projects — fully a third of NASA’s science portfolio," The Planetary Society said in a statement about the newly released budget documents. "These are unique projects that would require billions of new spending to replace."

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, NASA's highly anticipated next-gen observatory, is not one of the casualties, as many had feared. But the budget request allocates just $156.6 million to Roman's development next year — less than half of what NASA had planned to spend.

The budget request also slashes NASA's workforce from its current 17,391 to 11,853 — a reduction of about 32%. And it would eliminate the agency's Office of STEM Engagement, saying that NASA will inspire future generations sufficiently via its missions.

"The radical and rapid gutting of NASA's resources will lead to reduced productivity, threaten institutional knowledge and create economic uncertainty in the American industrial base," The Planetary Society said.

The organization is not a fan of the White House's plan, describing it as "an extinction-level event for the space agency’s most productive, successful and broadly supported activity: science."

The newly published documents also confirm other exploration plans laid out in the skinny budget — for example, the cancellation of the Gateway moon-orbiting space station and the phaseout of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule.

These pieces of hardware have long been part of NASA's architecture for Artemis, its program of crewed moon exploration. The 2026 budget request eliminates SLS and Orion after they fly together on Artemis 3, a crewed landing mission targeted to launch in 2027.

They would be replaced by private vehicles developed via the new "Commercial Moon to Mars (M2M) Infrastructure and Transportation Program," which gets $864 million in the 2026 budget proposal.

It's unclear how much of this will actually come to pass, however; the budget request is just a proposal, which will not be enacted unless and until Congress approves it.

The Planetary Society, for one, doesn't think this will happen; it describes the budget request "as dead on arrival in Congress."

The Russian reactor will be used to power the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), jointly led by China and Russia, and should be completed by 2036, according to a memorandum of cooperation signed by the two nations.

The announcement comes just after NASA revealed a 2026 budget proposal that would axe the agency's plans for an orbital lunar base.

The construction of the Chinese-Russian reactor will likely be carried out autonomously "without the presence of humans," according to a 2024 interview with Yury Borisov, director general of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, on the Russian state-owned news site TASS. While details of how this can be achieved remain unclear, Borisov added that the technological steps are "almost ready."

"The station will conduct fundamental space research and test technology for long-term uncrewed operations of the ILRS, with the prospect of a human being's presence on the Moon," Roscosmos wrote in a May 8 announcement following the signing of the memorandum.

The new research station, a permanent, manned lunar base located on the moon's south pole, has so far attracted 17 countries to join the program — including Egypt, Pakistan, Venezuela, Thailand and South Africa. Its groundwork will be laid by China's 2028 Chang'e-8 mission, which will be the nation's first time landing an astronaut on the lunar surface.

The roadmap for the ILRS was first unveiled in June 2021, with China and Russia announcing they would loft the pieces for a robotic moon base using five super heavy-lift rocket launches from 2030 to 2035.

Once these basic pieces are established, China plans additional launches that will extend the base further, connecting it to a space station orbiting the moon and two nodes located at the moon's equator and its far side, Wu Yanhua, the chief designer of China's deep exploration project, said at a 2024 media conference, according to state media outlet Xinhua.

This extended model, laying the foundations for manned landings on Mars, should be completed by 2050. It "will be powered by solar, radioisotope and nuclear generators," Wu said. "It will also include lunar-Earth and high-speed lunar surface communication networks, as well as lunar vehicles like a hopper, an unmanned long-range vehicle, and pressurized and unpressurized manned rovers."

The memorandum comes at a time of growing ambition for China's space programs. The country has had a lunar presence since the 2013 landing of the Chang'e 3 mission, which placed a rover on the moon. Subsequent missions landed more rovers on the moon and Mars, while collecting samples from the moon's near and far sides, and mapped out the lunar surface.

China's race to build a lunar outpost also has an American rival in the Artemis program, which has recently been beset by delays. Artemis III, which will see NASA astronauts return to our nearest natural satellite for the first time in over 50 years, is expected to launch sometime in 2027.

Meanwhile, the future of NASA's own planned lunar space station, dubbed Gateway and initially slated for launch as soon as 2027, has been thrown into question with the release of the Trump administration's proposed 2026 budget. The budget calls for canceling the Gateway mission, despite significant progress on building the station's modules.

NASA's prototype for a lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) glows in this 2024 portrait.

What is it?

As NASA plans to return humans to the moon as part of the Artemis program, the space agency is looking at how to enable astronauts to work on the lunar surface at the south pole. Those efforts included the design of an unpressurized rover prototype, known as the ground test unit.

The eight-wheeled prototype was used to evaluate different rover concepts, leading up to and through the April 2024 selection of three companies — Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab — to supply lunar terrain vehicles (LTV).

“The Ground Test Unit [helps] NASA teams on the ground test and understand all aspects of rover operations on the lunar surface ahead of Artemis missions,” said Jeff Somers, engineering lead for the ground test unit in October 2024. “The GTU allows NASA to be a smart buyer, so we are able to test and evaluate rover operations while we work with the LTV contractors and their hardware.”

Where is it?

The Ground test Unit was designed, developed and tested at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. This photo was taken inside the West High Bay Tower of Johnson's Building 49.

Why is it amazing?

Well, don't take our word for it — photographers Bill Stafford and Helen Arase Vargas were awarded third place award for this portrait of the ground test unit as part of NASA Headquarters' 2024 Picture of the Year contest.

Want to learn more?

You can read more about NASA's needs for an unpressurized moon rover and the selection of U.S. companies to build lunar terrain vehicles (LTV).

Cislunar space — the region extending from our planet to the moon — is getting a lot of attention these days, as more and more spacecraft make their way to Earth's nearest neighbor. But what needs to happen to help spark a true cislunar economy? And, given actions of late here on Earth, are we headed for a tariff-free cislunar zone?

There's a lot of hard work ahead to put in place the needed hardware to sustain and define such a dollar-generating idea, experts say, but we at least have some ideas about how to get started.

Plug-in and play

It turns out that power allowing day-and-night operations on the moon — that is, "plug-in and play" lunar equipment — stands out as a must-have if humanity is to develop a real, rather than aspirational, cislunar economy.

The thought of cislunar space becoming a cash cow of the cosmos was heavily discussed during the Space Foundation's 40th Space Symposium, which was held here from April 7 to April 10 by the Space Foundation.

"I don't see an inner solar system in which we don't significantly develop the moon if you're going to go anywhere," said Rob Chambers, director of strategy for exploration at Lockheed Martin. "The basis of an economy has to be something that Earthlings will pay for."

Lockheed Martin is taking a visionary look at the building blocks of lunar infrastructure. For example, the company thinks that, by 2044, the moon could be abuzz with international research and commercial infrastructure, transforming its barren surface into a livable ecosystem.

You can take Lockheed's take on the infrastructure needed to maintain a permanent presence on the moon — near its south pole, which is thought to be rich in water ice — in this futuristic tour.

Lots of power

"We're focused on water and therefore hydrogen and oxygen propellants as the key product that is the base of the economy," Timothy Cichan, space exploration architect at Lockheed Martin, told Space.com.

"The big thing is power…lots of power," he said, as well as the mobility needed to source the water ice lying on the chilly, permanently shadowed floors of polar craters.

"Even in lunar nighttime, it's as close to cold as the permanently shadowed regions," Chambers explained. "You have to learn how to handle getting in and out of those thermal gradients. You have to be comfortable [with] operating in the nighttime in order to do productive things in the daytime."

The world's your oyster

So, do you design for cold or hot on the moon?

"You've got to design for both," Chambers said. "If you've got all the power you want, say hundreds of kilowatts, now you can optimize for something other than just survival."

If there's less than 85% continuous sunlight, he added, "our numbers say switch over to nuclear fission at that point. There are not that many places on the moon that have 85% sun. That, to us, says buckle up and get comfortable with nuclear fission. Once you've done that, now the world's your oyster."

Cichan pointed to the evolving nature of NASA's Artemis program, which aims to establish a permanent human presence on the moon in the coming years. Additionally, there's the space agency's footing of the bill for lander-carried experiments via its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

"NASA is making sure that we can evolve to an actual economy," said Cichan. "Nobody has closed a business case around that as yet, but we want to set up the infrastructure such that it is commercially operated, so that we can evolve to a place where there is a lunar economy. It's in a nascent form right now, very dependent on government dollars."

Chasm of capitalism

Cichan said that his message is, try to do things today to get prepared for the cislunar economy: "You have got to be there; otherwise, you're not part of the conversation."

Chambers labeled our current ability to make money in a cislunar economy as a "chasm of capitalism."

"I think there will be either a demand signal that the government says they will keep pouring in billions of dollars and they will buy power — for instance, writing a contract that has a guaranteed procurement with exit clauses if they don't. That's one way of getting through that chasm … assured government spending," Chambers said.

Another scenario, he said, is that the mining of helium-3 — a fuel for nuclear fusion reactors — on the moon turns out to be a viable business, and then people will pour in money. "History has shown that humans figure out how to make money anywhere."

Circular lunar economy

Michael Nayak is a program manager with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He's leading DARPA's 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study.

At the symposium, Nayak spotlighted what's needed within the next decade to establish an era of interoperable lunar infrastructure, which could spur a fully functioning lunar economy.

"Today, the lunar economy has mining as its center. But in order for that to scale, we need megawatts of power," he said. In fact, Nayak would bet on a power company to be in the top five of a "lunar Fortune 50" business listing.

In second place is heat rejection and generation as a commercial service, Nayak predicted, "especially in the wildly fluctuating temperatures of the moon."

How does it scale?

Of like mind is Jamie Porter, director of the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium managed by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

"If you don't have power, you just can't do anything. You need it to be able to move forward," Porter told the Space Symposium gathering.

"At DARPA, we are simply interested in big risks," Nayak said. The hard question that quickly emerged early in the LunA-10 study, he added, was, "How does it scale?" That is, how can we move beyond prototype lunar hardware to industry infrastructure and an actual lunar economy?

"Power and thermal are absolutely critical," said Nayak. "The third thing is, where should we go [on the moon] if commercial industry is the point? Where are the specific locations with 'reserves' that are sufficiently deep that I can build an end-to-end economic model around?"

NASA announced Norway's decision to join the Artemis Accords for a "safe, peaceful, and prosperous future in space" as the space agency's website phrases it. Norway is the third country to join the Artemis Accords so far in 2025.

A signing ceremony to welcome Norway took place today (May 15) at the Norwegian Space Agency in Oslo, with Norway's Minister of Trade and Industry Cecilie Myrseth signing on behalf of the Norwegian government.

"The United States and Norway have a longstanding relationship in space. Collaboration stretches back to 1962, when NASA supported the first civilian suborbital rocket launch mission above the Arctic Circle from Andøya Space," a statement from the U.S. Department of State says.

“We’re grateful for the strong and meaningful collaboration we’ve already had with the Norwegian Space Agency,” acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro said in an agency statement. “Now, by signing the Artemis Accords, Norway is not only supporting the future of exploration, but also helping us define it with all our partners for the Moon, Mars, and beyond,” she said.

The Artemis Accords were established in October 2020 with the U.S. and seven other founding countries. The Accords represent a set of principles and guidelines designed to shape how nations explore the moon and deep space. The Accords also echo key concepts from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, aiming to promote peaceful, cooperative space activity.

The Artemis Program is NASA's current initiative to return humans to the moon to create a sustained presence on the lunar surface and eventually Mars. The first Artemis mission, Artemis 1, launched in November 2022. The mission launched the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with an uncrewed Orion spacecraft on a month-long mission into orbit around the moon and back.

Artemis 2, which has been delayed due to allow more time to prepare the Orion capsule after its predecessor mission experienced heat shield issues, will fly four astronauts a "free-return" trajectory around the moon once before flying them back to Earth as early as February 2026. Artemis 3, slated for 2027, will be the first mission in the program to land astronauts on the lunar surface, but beyond that, the program currently exists in uncertainty.

The "skinny budget" recently released by the White House slashes NASA's budget by nearly 25%. The new budget cancels NASA's massive SLS rocket after Artemis 3, and scraps Gateway, the lunar space station also in development for future Artemis missions.

The Volatiles Investigating Polar Explorer Rover (VIPER) has had a rocky, uncertain year. NASA announced its cancellation last summer over budget concerns, then opened a solicitation request for private sector partnerships in an attempt to get VIPER to the moon at no additional cost to the government. On Wednesday (May 7), NASA announced the cancellation of that search, and thanked the companies that submitted proposals.

“We appreciate the efforts of those who proposed to the Lunar Volatiles Science Partnership Announcement for Partnership Proposals call,” NASA's Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Nicky Fox said in the statement. "We look forward to accomplishing future volatiles science with VIPER as we continue NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration efforts.”

VIPER is designed to hunt for water ice deposits near the moon's south pole — an area of interest to NASA, as it plans to establish a permanent presence there as a part of the Artemis program. VIPER was designed to help assess potentially life-supporting resources ahead of those future crewed installations.

Originally, VIPER was slated to land on the lunar surface aboard Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic's Griffin lander, as a part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. Griffin is expected to launch to the moon later this year, but will now be carrying Astrolab's FLIP moon rover instead.

Last July, NASA said that the VIPER cancellation would save the space agency about $84 million in development costs, in addition to its initial $250 million estimation and more than $250 million in projected over costs. Now, with NASA no longer seeking partnerships for VIPER in the private sector, it is unclear how the rover will get to the moon.

The Trump administration's recently released "skinny budget" proposes to reduce NASA's funding by 24%. More than half of that cut would come from the Science Mission Directorate, painting an unclear future not only for VIPER but a slew of other missions as well.

In the meantime, VIPER is fully assembled and ready to launch, save its need for a lander to ferry it to the lunar surface and a rocket to launch it into space. "The agency will announce a new strategy for VIPER in the future," NASA said in Wednesday's statement.

With the completion of its assembly and testing of the first Orion spacecraft set to fly astronauts to the moon, Lockheed Martin transferred possession of the Artemis 2 capsule to NASA's Exploration Ground Systems team.

What is it?

A modern spacecraft deserves a modern set of keys, so when it came time to hand over the Artemis 2 spacecraft to NASA, Lockheed Martin presented the space agency's Exploration Ground Systems team with a ceremonial enlarged key fob, complete with Artemis 2 mission patch key ring dongle.

From the left to right: Kelvin Manning, acting director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center; Shawn Quinn, Exploration Ground Systems program manager; Lakiesha Hawkins, assistant deputy associate administrator, Moon to Mars Program office; Howard Hu, Orion program manager; Debbie Korth, Orion deputy program manager.

Where is it?

The May 1, 2025, handover ceremony took place inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Artemis 2 Orion spacecraft was then moved to the Multi-Payload Processing Facility three days later to undergo fueling and processing for prelaunch operations.

Why is it amazing?

Beyond the fun fob, the Artemis 2 Orion is the first spacecraft in more than 50 years to begin launch preparations to fly astronauts to the moon. The mission will see NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch together with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen fly around the moon, possibly flying further away from Earth than any human has ever done so.

"This achievement is a testament to our employees and suppliers who have worked tirelessly to get us to this important milestone," said Kirk Shireman, vice president of Human Space Exploration and Orion program manager at Lockheed Martin, in a statement. "The Orion spacecraft completion for Artemis 2 is a major step forward in our nation's efforts to develop a long-term lunar presence."

"It's exciting to think that soon, humans will see the Earth rise over the lunar horizon from our vehicle," he said.

Want to know more?

You can read more about the Artemis 2 Orion spacecraft hand over to NASA and the latest about the assembly of the mission's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. You can also read about the mission's patch as reproduced as part of the ceremonial key fob.

The giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket continues to grow inside the NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). Technicians at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Florida, stacked the rocket's second stage onto the launch vehicle Thursday (May 1). The Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) is responsible for carrying the Orion spacecraft and crew the rest of the way into orbit around the Earth, and then sending them on their way to the moon.

This SLS rocket will launch the Artemis 2 mission, with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The quartet are flying the second installment of NASA's Artemis program, which aims to establish a permanent presence on the moon as a technology springboard to one day send humans to Mars.

The next mission, Artemis 3, would then deliver astronauts to the moon with the help of a Starship lander in 2027. That could be the last SLS rocket to fly, though. The Trump administration proposed canceling the SLS and Orion program after Artemis 3 in its 2026 budget proposal on Friday (May 2).

Artemis 2 is scheduled to launch sometime in early 2026 — more than three years after the launch of Artemis 1, in November 2022. Artemis 1 sent an uncrewed Orion spacecraft into lunar orbit on a mission that lasted about 25 days. Orion and crew won't enter lunar orbit for Artemis 2, but they will fly around the moon.

Rather than enter orbit, the ICPS will steer Orion and the Artemis 2 crew out of Earth orbit into a free-return trajectory around the moon. This slingshots the spacecraft around the lunar far-side on a course directly back to Earth.

Unexpected damage to Orion's heat shield caused by atmospheric reentry during Artemis 1 is to blame for the long wait time between Artemis 1 and Artemis 2. That damage delayed Artemis 2 and Artemis 3 by more than a year each. Artemis 3 is currently targeted for 2027, and will carry the first astronauts to land on the moon since the Apollo missions.

The ICPS arrived at the VAB last month. Now, NASA has shared photos of the ICPS being stacked inside the VAB on X, showcasing the stage as it was hoisted from the warehouse floor and lowered into the SLS stage adapter.

NASA also took deliver of Orion and its service module this week from the spacecraft's main contractor Lockheed Martin. Before it heads to the VAB for incorporation with SLS, Orion will be transferred KSC's Exploration Ground Systems for processing.

The bill is titled The Celestial Time Standardization Act (or HR 2313), and was passed out of committee by a voice vote on Tuesday (April 29). It now goes to the full House for a future floor vote. If it passes the House (and then the U.S. Senate), it would go to President Trump's desk, where it would be signed into law.

The bill will "require the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to develop celestial time standardization to support future operations and infrastructure on and around the Moon and other celestial bodies other than Earth, and for other purposes."

Specifically, the bill directs "The Administrator of NASA, in consultation with the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, shall carry out the following: (1) Enable the development of celestial time standardization, including by leading the study and definition of a coordinated lunar time. (2) Develop a strategy to implement a coordinated lunar time that would support future operations and infrastructure on and around the Moon."

The bill further requires that NASA work with relevant public, private and academic institutions, international partners, and international standard-setting bodies to develop the new time system, with a few key requirements as guidance.

First, the new Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC) needs to be translatable into Coordinated Universal Time (UTC); it needs to be accurate enough for precision space navigation and communication; it needs to function uninterrupted during periods of loss of contact with Earth; and finally, the new time system needs to be scalable so that similar time systems can be established for other celestial bodies beyond the moon, especially Mars.

Why a time zone for the moon?

The issue of a dedicated time zone on the moon hasn't been given much attention in the past, as NASA and other agencies have previously used "mission elapsed time" and other timekeeping means to coordinate navigation and communication in cislunar space. However, as NASA and other space agencies have set their sights on new moon missions and establishing a permanent lunar presence, a common timekeeping system may be a good idea.

One major reason scientists can't simply use Earth time on the moon has to do with Albert Einstein's general relativity theory, which shows that gravity, mass and the passage of time are inextricably linked. All of our Earth clocks are therefore effectively set to Earth’s gravity, while clocks on the moon would need to be set according to the much lower mass and gravity of the moon.

Time on the moon passes about 58.7 microseconds faster than on Earth, and when you're dealing with the kind of precision required for distant communication and navigation between the lunar surface and our planet, that difference (only about 58.7 millionths of a second) can cause real world problems.

Bipartisan support for LTC is a good sign for Artemis

With NASA facing some hefty proposed cuts to its funding this year and beyond, the unanimous voice vote to pass HR 2313 out of committee is encouraging for the future of NASA's Artemis mission, which aims to return humans to the moon in the next few years and ultimately establish a permanent base of the lunar surface. LTC would be necessary for any permanent operations on the lunar surface and in orbit around the moon.

This bipartisan support for Artemis was further demonstrated during the nomination hearing for Jared Isaacman, President Trump's pick to lead NASA, where both Republican and Democratic senators pressed Isaacman on his commitment to the program amid fears that he would prioritize Mars over returning to the moon.

"We will prioritize sending American astronauts to Mars and along the way we will inevitably have the capabilities to return to the moon," Isaacman told the committee, adding later in his testimony that "We don't have to make a binary decision of moon versus Mars, or moon has to come first versus Mars."

Isaacman's nomination also passed out of the Senate committee this week, with both Committee Chairman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Ranking Member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) supporting his nomination on the condition that Isaacman continue to pursue Artemis’ program objectives.

"Mr. Isaacman seems to be committed to the current plan for both lander redundancies, Space Launch Systems, and returning to the Moon as fast as possible," Cantwell said.

The White House's proposed 2026 "skinny budget," which was released today (May 2), would fundamentally reshape Artemis, which aims to establish a sustainable human presence on and around the moon by the end of the 2020s.

The budget would cut NASA's "legacy human exploration systems" funding by $879 million and phase out the agency's Space Launch System (SLS) moon rocket and Orion capsule — Artemis' current backbone — after just two more flights. It would also immediately cancel Gateway, the small space station NASA aims to build in lunar orbit to support Artemis operations.

"SLS alone costs $4 billion per launch and is 140% over budget," the skinny budget document reads. "The Budget funds a program to replace SLS and Orion flights to the moon with more cost-effective commercial systems that would support more ambitious subsequent lunar missions."

Those commercial systems would presumably be provided by SpaceX and/or Blue Origin, both of which are already working on crewed lunar landers for use on Artemis missions and rockets that could get astronauts very far afield (Starship in SpaceX's case, and New Glenn for Blue Origin).

SLS and Orion have flown once together to date — on Artemis 1, a 25-day flight that sent an uncrewed Orion to lunar orbit and back in late 2022.

The duo's next two flights — which will be their last, if the budget proposal is enacted by Congress — will both be crewed. Artemis 2, targeted to launch in spring 2026, will send four astronauts around the moon. Artemis 3 will land people near the moon's south pole in 2027, if all goes according to plan.

Gateway would get no such runway; it's slated for immediate termination, according to the budget document.

NASA currently plans to assemble the station in lunar orbit in 2027. Some progress toward this goal has been made; for example, the station's main habitation module, known as HALO, arrived in the United States last month from Italy, where it was built.

The skinny budget — a pared-down summary of the full 2026 budget request — is a rough one for many other NASA programs as well. Overall, the White House proposal cuts the space agency's funding by $6 billion from enacted 2025 levels, a reduction of nearly 25%.

That would be the biggest single-year cut in NASA's history, according to The Planetary Society, a nonprofit organization that advocates for space exploration.

The budget would cut space science and Earth science by $2.3 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively. The proposal ends NASA's Mars sample return program and "eliminates funding for low-priority climate monitoring satellites," among other impacts.

These and other NASA cuts are "in line with the Administration’s objectives of returning to the moon before China and putting a man on Mars," according to the budget document.

The Trump administration released its proposed 2026 "skinny budget" today (May 2), laying out in broad strokes how it plans to allocate funding across federal agencies in the coming fiscal year.

Reports had suggested that NASA would take it on the chin, and that is indeed the case: The skinny budget slashes NASA funding by $6 billion compared to enacted 2025 levels, from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion — a cut of 24%. That would be the biggest single-year cut to NASA funding in American history, according to the nonprofit Planetary Society.

The cuts are especially deep for space science, Earth science and legacy human exploration systems, which would be slashed by $2.3 billion, $1.2 billion and nearly $900 million, respectively.

NASA's sustainable aviation programs would also come to an end, and the administration's budget would "ensure continued elimination [of] any funding toward misaligned DEIA initiatives," according to NASA, referring to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs.

If this budget is enacted — a big if, as it must be approved by Congress — some big-ticket NASA programs will get the axe. Among them are Mars sample return, a joint effort with the European Space Agency to get material collected by NASA's Perseverance rover back to Earth, and Gateway, the planned moon-orbiting space station that has long been a key part of NASA's Artemis moon program.

And Artemis would be further reshaped in the coming years as well.

"The Budget phases out the grossly expensive and delayed Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule after three flights," the skinny budget document reads. "SLS alone costs $4 billion per launch and is 140% over budget. The Budget funds a program to replace SLS and Orion flights to the moon with more cost-effective commercial systems that would support more ambitious subsequent lunar missions."

SLS and Orion have flown together once — on the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission, which went to lunar orbit and back in late 2022. Under the new budget plan, the duo would be retired after Artemis 3, which aims to land astronauts near the lunar south pole in 2027.

The skinny budget increases funding for just one branch of NASA — human space exploration, which gets a nearly $650 million boost.

This is a reflection of Trump administration priorities, which value "returning to the moon before China and putting a man on Mars," according to the document.

Orion, the capsule that will carry the Artemis 2 astronauts on a mission around the moon and back, has been officially handed over to NASA. The agency took possession of Orion from the spacecraft's main contractor, Lockheed Martin, on Thursday (May 1), according to a statement from the company.

Now, Orion will be transported to the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. It will undergo final tests and processing ahead of incorporation with the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that will send the spacecraft and its crew into orbit. SLS is currently being stacked inside NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at KSC, which will the last stop for both the rocket and Orion before rolling out to the launch pad. SLS's interim cryogenic propulsion stage (ICPS) was transported to the VAB on April 15, NASA said in a post last month.

In addition to validating Orion's development tests and checkouts, Lockheed Martin was responsible for upgrading the life support and other systems essential to operate the capsule with a crew aboard, including audio communications, an exercise machine and the spacecraft's launch abort system.

Artemis 2 is scheduled to launch in early 2026. It will fly NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a free return trajectory aboard Orion. Their mission will fly them out of Earth orbit toward the moon, which Orion will slingshot around and then come back home.

"The Orion spacecraft completion for Artemis 2 is a major step forward in our nation's efforts to develop a long-term lunar presence," Kirk Shireman, Lockheed Martin's vice president of Human Space Exploration, said in the statement.

As its name suggests, Artemis 2 will be the second mission of the Artemis program, which aims to establish a permanent outpost on the moon as a springboard toward a crewed mission to Mars. Artemis 1 successfully sent an uncrewed Orion to lunar orbit and back in late 2022. NASA is currently targeting 2027 for the launch of Artemis 3, which will be the first mission to land astronauts on the moon since 1972.

Artemis 2 and Artemis 3 had been expected to launch this year and next, respectively, but damage to Orion's heat shield during atmospheric entry at the end of Artemis 1 forced NASA to delay each by more than a year.

As NASA moves closer to returning the first astronauts to the moon since the Apollo program more than 50 years ago, progress is being made on the hardware that will send the next humans to the lunar surface.

With all of the hardware in place in Florida for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that will launch the Artemis 2 crew around the moon in 2026, work is picking up on the next booster's core stage that will fly on Artemis 3, planned as the new program's first moon landing.

What is it?

The 130-foot-tall (40-meter) propellant tank is one of the five major elements that comprise the 212-foot-tall (65-meter) SLS core stage. The stage, along with its four RS-25 rocket engines, and side-mounted solid rocket boosters, will be used to launch the Artemis 3 Orion spacecraft and its crew to walk on the moon.

Teams recently recently completed application of the thermal protection system and will now continue outfitting the liquid hydrogen tank with the final systems it needs to fly on the Artemis 3 mission.

Where is it?

NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility is located in eastern New Orleans, Louisiana.

Before serving as a factory for Artemis SLS core stage components, Michoud was used to assemble Apollo-era Saturn V rocket stages and external tanks for the 30-year space shuttle program.

Why is it amazing?

This marks another step forward before humans again take a step on the moon.

The photo itself is amazing given how photographer Steven Seipel was able to capture the liquid hydrogen tank's reflection in a standing body of water as the hardware was moved to its next processing facility.

Want to know more?

You can read more about the Artemis 3 mission and the completion of other components for the SLS at Michoud.

The topic came up repeatedly during Isaacman's nomination hearing, which the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation held on April 9. Multiple Democratic senators pressed the 42-year-old billionaire on his relationship with the SpaceX chief, who was a prominent supporter of Trump's campaign and is now a close adviser to the president.

For example, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) asked Isaacman repeatedly if Musk was in the room at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Florida estate, late last year when Trump offered him the NASA job. Each time, Isaacman declined to answer directly, saying that he was in Florida to be interviewed by the president-elect.

Markey cited potential conflict-of-interest concerns to explain his line of questioning. Isaacman, the senator claimed, has "deep personal and financial ties" to Musk, who leads a company that competes for (and often gets) NASA launch contracts.

There certainly are, or at least were, financial ties between the two billionaires: Isaacman funded and commanded two pioneering astronaut missions with SpaceX — Inspiration4 in September 2021 and Polaris Dawn this past fall.

The questions about Musk didn't stop when the hearing ended. Markey and several other Democratic senators asked Isaacman to provide further details about his relationship with Musk in their written "questions for the record," which the Commerce Committee released on Thursday (April 24).

Markey, for instance, asked yet again about Musk's presence at the Mar-a-Lago meeting with Trump. But Isaacman stuck to his guns, offering a similar indirect answer.

"My interview was with the President of the United States. The person asking me questions — and ultimately offering me the opportunity — was the President himself," he wrote.

Markey also cited a March story in The Wall Street Journal, which reported that Musk called Isaacman late last year to discuss the potential NASA administrator role. Isaacman refuted that claim directly.

"Mr. Musk never called me to discuss becoming NASA Administrator," he wrote. "The only call I received regarding this position came from [Commerce] Secretary Lutnick, who was serving as co-chair of the transition team. That phone interview ultimately led to my in-person meeting and interview with President Trump."

Related: Trump's pick for NASA chief tells Senate he's aiming for the Red Planet. 'We will prioritize sending American astronauts to Mars'

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the committee's ranking member, also asked Isaacman about his ties to the world's richest man. "I understand you have a close relationship with Mr. Musk and his company, SpaceX," she wrote.

But Isaacman disputed that characterization.

"My relationship with SpaceX is not unlike NASA's, in that they are currently the only commercial provider offering crewed transportation to and from low Earth orbit," he wrote. "I do not have a close personal relationship with Mr. Musk. While I've spoken with him occasionally over the years in my capacity as a SpaceX customer, I would describe our interactions as professional. I admire and respect his contributions to space and technology, but it would be inaccurate to characterize our relationship as close."

Cantwell further asked Isaacman how his relationship with Musk and SpaceX "will not result in conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflicts." Isaacman replied that he has disclosed all his financial relationships and is following all procedures laid out by government ethics officials.

"Pursuant to my ethics agreement, I have terminated all spaceflight service agreements that I had with SpaceX, and all money paid to SpaceX for future missions has been refunded," he added.

Those refunds may apply to the final two flights of the Polaris Program, a series of crewed SpaceX missions organized and funded by Isaacman. (Polaris Dawn was the first of three planned Polaris flights.)

Isaacman further wrote that, if confirmed as NASA chief, he would resign from his posts at Shift4 Payments, the payment-processing company he founded and currently leads as CEO. This was in response to a question from Cantwell that noted that Shift4 "maintains a financial relationship" with Starlink, a SpaceX subsidiary that provides internet service via a satellite megaconstellation in low Earth orbit.

"I have no interest in personal gain or benefiting any contractor — I am here solely to serve my country and lead the world’s greatest space agency with integrity and transparency," Isaacman wrote.

The "for the record" questions weren't all about Musk, of course. Democratic and Republican senators asked Isaacman about a range of topics, from NASA's Artemis moon program to the Trump administration's apparent plan to slash NASA's science budget by nearly half.

Isaacman doesn't seem on board with a such a deep cut. "I have not reviewed or been party to any official discussions, but a ~50% reduction to NASA’s science budget does not appear to be an optimal outcome," he wrote.

You can find the Democratic senators' "questions for the record" here. The Republicans' are here.

And there will be more action for Isaacman next week: On April 30, the Commerce Committee will vote on whether or not to report his nomination to the full Senate, a key step in the confirmation process.

NASA's Orion test article was exposed to launch abort-level acoustics prior to testing its forward bay cover's ability to jettison at the Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio. The cover is the last component of the spacecraft that must eject before parachutes deploy to ensure a safe landing.

What is it?

Although the setting might look like something out of a Mary Shelley novel or a noir film, it is actually a key test of NASA's next-generation space capsule in a state-of-the-art facility.

Engineers and technicians from NASA and Lockheed Martin subjected the Orion environmental test article to the extreme conditions Orion may experience in a launch abort scenario, including the jettison of its forward bay cover, the last component that must eject before the parachutes deploy for a safe landing.

Where is it?

The November 2024 test took place at the Space Environments Complex (SEC) at NASA's Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility (previously Plum Brook) in Sandusky, Ohio.

The SEC houses the world’s largest and most powerful space environment simulation facilities. The Reverberant Acoustic Test Facility (RATF), seen here, is the world’s most powerful spacecraft acoustic test chamber.

Why is it amazing?

Before this Orion capsule entered tests in support of the Artemis 2 mission — the first planned flight to return astronauts to the moon since the Apollo program — and before it became an environmental test article, it flew to the moon and back as the Artemis 1 mission Orion crew module.

Further, testing Orion at such high acoustic levels was a major milestone for the Artemis program.

"These tests are absolutely critical, because we have to complete all of these tests to say the spacecraft design is safe and we’re ready to fly a crew for the first time on Artemis 2," said Michael See, ETA vehicle manager, Orion Program. "This is the first time we’ve been able to test a spacecraft on the ground in such an extreme abort-level acoustic environment."

Want to know more?

You can watch a video of the forward bay cover jettison test and read more about the trials at the Space Environments Complex. You can also read more about the Artemis 2 mission.

An explosion at the Promontory, Utah facility owned by aerospace and defense technology company Northrop Grumman was reported Wednesday, at 9:38 a.m. EDT (1338 GMT, 7:38 a.m., local time in Promontory). Emergency responders arrived to the scene to find one building completely destroyed.

"Initial reports indicate that there are no injuries or fatalities at this time," the Box Elder Country Sheriff's Office wrote in a social media post on Facebook. There were no injuries or fatalities associated with the incident.

Northrop Grumman's Utah facility manufactures and tests solid rocket engines, like those used to launch NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for the Artemis Program. Their campus spans over 10 miles (16 kilometers) of Utah desert, northwest of Promontory, with two central hubs of facilities.

Wednesday's explosion destroyed a building in the northwest portion of Northrop Grumman's northernmost collection of site infrastructure, about 8.5 miles (13.5 kilometers) north of the company's test stand for the SLS solid rocket boosters.

Other buildings on the Northrop Grumman campus were unaffected by Wednesday's incident. No cause for the explosion has been released, and the Box Elder County Sheriff's Office said the investigation was ongoing, and advised the public to avoid the area.

As it so happens, the solid rocket boosters for Artemis 2 are already inside NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building, at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Florida. The pair have been mated to SLS's core stage, which continues to undergo stacking ahead of Artemis 2's scheduled launch in the Spring of 2026.

The manufacturing of Northrop Grumman's solid rocket boosters for Artemis 3 was completed in 2022, and are being stored in Utah before being shipped to KSC for final assembly. Artemis 3 is currently scheduled for 2027.

That module is HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost), which will serve as a living and working space for astronauts aboard Gateway.

A cargo plane flew the HALO module to the U.S. from Turin, Italy, where it was constructed by the company Thales Alenia Space. The cargo plane landed at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport in Mesa, Arizona on April 1.

The newly released photos give you a good feel for the size of the lunar module, which takes up most of the space in the plane’s large cargo hold.

The next stop for the HALO module was Northrop Grumman’s integration and test facility in Gilbert, Arizona, where it's undergoing final outfitting. Northrop Grumman is one of the contractors working on NASA’s Artemis program of moon exploration, which sees Gateway as a vital piece of infrastructure.

The agency says that the lunar station will help "chart a path of scientific discovery toward the first crewed missions to Mars," which will follow after NASA establishes a sustainable human presence on the moon — a key Artemis goal.

NASA calls the HALO module a "core component" of Gateway. Aside from providing astronaut living quarters, the module will offer a range of utilities like command and control, power distribution, communications and tracking. It will also enable research, supporting internal and external science payloads.

After Northrop Grumman finishes its HALO work, the module will head to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There, it will be integrated with Gateway's Power and Propulsion Element ahead of a planned 2027 launch atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) continues to make progress toward its Artemis 2 mission planned for next year; SLS is currently being stacked inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, where, the final pieces of the rocket are being assembled.

The rocket's conical stage adapter, which connects the SLS core booster to the launch vehicle's upper stages, was added to the stack on Saturday (April 12), according to NASA. The next piece of the puzzle arrived a short three days later: The SLS interim cryogenic propulsion stage (ICPS) was transported to the VAB on Tuesday (April 15), after wrapping up testing and checkouts at KSC's Multi-Payload Processing Facility, NASA's Exploration Ground Systems team said in a post.

SLS will launch NASA's Orion spacecraft with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch as well as Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The quartet will fly Orion on a course that runs around the moon and back to Earth on the first crewed mission of the Artemis Program.

Through Artemis, NASA hopes to establish a permanent presence on the moon before evolving the technologies used to start sending crewed missions to Mars.

Artemis 1 launched in November of 2022, sending an uncrewed Orion capsule on a 25-day mission to lunar orbit. Upon its return to Earth, that capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. Artemis 2 won't actually enter lunar orbit in this way, but will rather circle the moon once on a free-return trajectory that keeps Orion on a constant course for Earth as it circumnavigates our celestial neighbor.

Artemis 2 is targeting a Spring 2026 launch and Artemis 3, NASA's mission to finally land astronauts on the moon, is scheduled to launch no earlier than 2027. Both missions had been expected to launch this year and next, but damage to Orion's heat shield during atmospheric entry at the end of Artemis 1 forced NASA to delay them each by more than a year.

On April 3, 2025, Northrop Grumman took delivery of the HALO, or Habitation and Logistics Outpost, for NASA's Gateway lunar orbit platform. The company will put the module through its final tests before it leaves for Florida and the launch pad.

What is it?

NASA's Artemis program Gateway will be a human-tended, small space station in orbit around the moon. As one of its first components to be launched, the Habitation and Logistics Outpost, or HALO, will be where astronauts live and conduct scientific research before NASA's international partners add additional modules.

The HALO will provide command, control and data handling capabilities, energy storage and power distribution, thermal control, communications and tracking capabilities, according to Thales Alenia Space, which built the pressure vessel as a subcontractor to Northrop Grumman.

The HALO has three docking ports for visiting vehicles and to attach future components. Up to four Artemis astronauts will be able to stay aboard the HALO for as long as a month while they come and go to the moon's South Pole.

Where is it?

The HALO is now at Northrop Grumman’s facility in Gilbert, Arizona, having arrived from Turin, Italy, where Thales Alenia Space built its primary structure. It will now undergo final outfitting in Gilbert before being shipped to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for integration with the Power and Propulsion Element and its launch to the moon.

Why is it amazing?

This is one more small step toward humans establishing a sustainable presence at the moon.

While the change of an administration and NASA leadership could lead to changes in priorities and program directions, with the hardware now being readied for launch, the existing plans graduate from ideas to tangible hardware waiting to be used.

Want to know more?

You can read more about the basics of the Gateway and view a 3D video of the lunar orbit platform. You can also read about what astronauts will wear when living and working aboard the HALO.

Jared Isaacman's confirmation hearing on Wednesday (April 9) got a bit testy at one point.

The 42-year-old Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur who has funded and flown two astronaut missions with SpaceX, is President Donald Trump's choice to lead NASA.

Trump announced the pick in December, shortly after interviewing Isaacman at Mar-a-Lago, the president's Florida estate. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk was in Florida at the time as well, and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) asked if Musk was involved in the proceedings.

"I understand that you met with Elon Musk at Mar-a-Lago in late 2024. Is that correct?" Markey asked Isaacman on Wednesday, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

"No, Senator, I was in Mar-a-Lago to be interviewed by the President of the United States," Isaacman responded.

Related: Trump's pick for NASA chief tells Senate he's aiming for the Red Planet. 'We will prioritize sending American astronauts to Mars'

"So you did not meet with Elon Musk at Mar-a-Lago?" Markey asked again. Isaacman repeated that he was there to be interviewed by Trump (who at that point had not yet been sworn in for his second term).

Markey continued to press, however, and Isaacman eventually said that he believed Musk was "one of dozens of people that were around Mar-a-Lago at the time." Isaacman acknowledged that he "probably had a conversation in passing" with Musk, though he stressed that he would not call it a meeting.

Markey then asked, repeatedly, if Musk was in the room with him and Trump. And Isaacman continued to demur, repeating that his meeting had been with Trump.

"Just say he was not in the meeting. Was he in the meeting or not in the meeting? Markey asked at one point.

"Senator, I'm trying to be as transparent as I can. I was being interviewed by the President of the United States," Isaacman responded.

"I'm assuming that you don't want to answer the question directly because Elon Musk was in the room," Markey replied. "I think that's the only conclusion anyone listening to this could reach."

The senator opened this line of questioning by citing Isaacman's "deep personal and financial ties" to Musk, which include the two orbital spaceflights the billionaire booked on SpaceX Crew Dragon capsules — Inspiration4 in 2021 and Polaris Dawn last fall.

"Given SpaceX's significant interests before NASA, you can understand why the public would be concerned about conflicts of interest here," Markey said.

After grilling Isaacman about Musk's possible participation in the Trump meeting, Markey asked the nominee if he has discussed his plans for NASA with Musk. And this time, Isaacman answered directly: "I have not."

Isaacman will remain a nominee for at least a few more weeks. The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation likely won't hold a vote on his confirmation until April 28 at the earliest, according to CNN.

Donald Trump's pick for NASA chief shares the president's ambitious Mars goals.

In his inaugural address on Jan. 20, Trump said the U.S. "will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars."

Jared Isaacman, the billionaire entrepreneur and private astronaut Trump has tapped to lead the agency, echoed those desires during his nomination hearing today (April 9) before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

Isaacman, 42, laid out a series of objectives in his opening remarks today, topping the list with crewed spaceflight goals.

"First, American astronauts will lead the way in the ultimate 'high ground' of space. As the president stated, we will prioritize sending American astronauts to Mars," Isaacman said.

Related: Who is Jared Isaacman, Trump's pick for NASA chief?

The Red Planet has long been NASA's horizon destination, a place it aims to reach after establishing a presence on a world much closer to home: the moon. Via its Artemis program, the agency hopes to set up one or more bases near the water-rich lunar south pole by the end of the decade.

China is also targeting the moon, intending to land astronauts there by 2030. U.S. politicians and military officials, as well as other stakeholders in the space community, have stressed the importance of winning this so-called new space race, ensuring China doesn't get to establish norms of operation and exploration on Earth's nearest neighbor.

One of those politicians is Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who chairs the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. During today's hearing, Cruz warned against abandoning the Artemis stepping-stone approach in favor of a quicker, more direct route to the Red Planet.

"We must stay the course," Cruz said. "An extreme shift in priorities at this stage would almost certainly mean a red moon, ceding ground to China for generations to come. I am hard-pressed to think of a more catastrophic mistake we could make in space than saying to communist China: 'The moon is yours.'"

Isaacman replied that he would not let that happen, saying NASA can work toward accomplishing multiple goals at once.

"NASA is an extraordinary agency that can do the near-impossible," he said. "We can chart a course for Mars in line with the president's vision to return to the moon before the Chinese can get there and figure out the space economy and do the other things."

The Artemis program, as currently envisioned, relies on a giant rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS), a crew capsule called Orion and a planned moon-orbiting space station known as Gateway. According to the program's blueprints, Artemis astronauts will touch down on the moon in privately built landers — SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's Blue Moon, both of which are still in development.

Some aspects of this architecture have drawn criticism from politicians and space enthusiasts, as Artemis has been beset by multiple delays and cost overruns over the years.

During today's hearing, Isaacman said he doesn't intend to cancel Gateway or any other aspect of Artemis at the moment. But his endorsement of the agency's moon mission architecture wasn't exactly ringing.

"I believe it's the best and fastest way to get there," Isaacman said. "I don't think it's the long-term way to get to and from the moon and to Mars with great frequency. But this is the plan we have now, and we've got to get this crew around the moon and the follow-on crew to land on the moon."

That last sentence referred to NASA's Artemis 2 mission, which is set to launch four astronauts on a round-the-moon trip in 2026, and Artemis 3, a lunar touchdown effort scheduled to lift off in mid-2027.

Related: NASA's Artemis program: Everything you need to know

Isaacman is CEO and founder of the payment-processing company Shift4. He's also an accomplished private pilot and astronaut with two spaceflights under his belt: He financed and commanded the Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn orbital missions, which flew in September 2021 and September 2024, respectively.

Both missions employed SpaceX hardware, so Isaacman has a relationship with the company's billionaire founder and CEO, Elon Musk. Musk is close with President Trump, serving as an adviser to the president and as the leader of the cost- and regulation-slashing "Department of Government Efficiency."

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) brought up those ties during today's hearing, asking whether Musk was present during Isaacman's meeting with then-President-elect Trump in Florida in late 2024. Isaacman declined to answer the question directly, instead repeating multiple times that he was being interviewed by Trump.

Markey also asked Isaacman if he has discussed his plans for NASA with Musk. That time, a direct answer was given: "I have not."

Markey and other senators will have some time to think about Isaacman's candidacy. The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation isn't expected to hold a confirmation vote for him until April 28 at the earliest, according to CNN.

Bangladesh is the 54th nation to join the Artemis Accords, and perhaps the first brought into the fold through the efforts of President Trump's transition team at NASA. Finland, the Accords' 53rd signatory, joined just one day after Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration and followed a fairly steady pace of new countries in late 2024.

This most recent signing ceremony took place in Bangladesh's capital of Dhaka, where Defense Secretary Ashraf Uddin signed alongside interim U.S. Ambassador Tracey Jacobson. The event included a prerecorded video message from NASA Acting Administrator Janet Petro. "We are thrilled by Bangladesh’s signature of the Accords," Petro said in a statement from NASA today.

"Bangladesh affirms its role in shaping the future of space exploration," Petro added in the release. "This is about ensuring that our journey to the moon — and beyond — is peaceful, sustainable, and transparent. We look forward to working together, to learning from one another and to seeing how Bangladesh’s incredible talent and vision contribute to humanity’s next great chapter in space."

Bangladesh’s Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus agreed with Petro, saying, “Bangladesh’s commitment to the Artemis Accords will enhance the country’s engagement with NASA and the international community."

The Artemis Accords were established in October 2020 with eight founding countries. They represent a set of shared principles and guidelines meant to shape how nations explore the moon and deep space. The Accords also reinforce key ideas from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, aiming to promote peaceful, cooperative space activity.

"The Next Giant Leap," a pair of mostly moon-themed fabric quilts, debuted this week at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. "A Tapestry of Collaboration" is a collection of cloth blocks from crafters in the 50 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, while "New Horizon" was sewn together from 62 student submissions.

Former NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, who was the first person to quilt while in space in 2013, launched the Lunar Quilt Block Challenge that led to both blankets' creation. She also added original works of her own to each.

"I'm really excited this came together," said Nyberg in a call with collectSPACE..com.

The two lunar quilts are presented side by side in the Hall of States as part of the Kennedy Center's "Earth to Space: Arts Breaking the Sky" festival. Now underway, the exhibition is included in a full slate of talks, dance and music performances that examine how "the arts can stimulate fresh thinking" about space exploration and the challenges that confront us on Earth.

Related: First quilter in space challenges students, crafters to stitch the moon

"Both quilts came out so beautiful," said Alicia Adams, co-curator of the Earth to Space festival and vice president for international programming at the Kennedy Center. "We are so glad they were included."

Among the individual squares that form the quilts are depictions of bootprints in the lunar soil; silhouettes of the Greek goddess Artemis, the sister of Apollo and namesake of NASA's current program to return astronauts to the moon; and representations of Earth, as where we come from, and Mars, as where we are ultimately headed.

"I wanted to make a rocket launching off Earth because when I saw the Artemis 1 launch, it was really beautiful," wrote Annalise Grasmuck of California, one of the students who contributed to "The Next Giant Leap" quilt, in the description submitted with her square.

"My grandma helped me make my quilt block. Which makes it more special because she watched Michael Culling [sic; Collins], Buzz Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong make the first successful moon landing when she was my age. I am excited to watch new astronauts land on the moon again."

Dana Altman, whose contribution represents Indiana in the "Collaboration" quilt, was inspired by her daughter's cat, which she depicts wearing a bubble helmet.

"Ghost, our fearless and beloved cat, symbolizes the spirit of exploration. Cats are natural adventurers, inquisitive and independent, just like the astronauts who will venture into space to explore the lunar surface and beyond," wrote Altman about her submission. "Ghost's ability to fearlessly explore his environment mirrors the human spirit of discovery. His quiet yet powerful presence reminds us that exploration isn't just about bold steps but also the quiet curiosity and determination that drive us forward."

Nyberg's instruction to all who entered the challenge was to create a design that represented what space exploration and returning to the moon meant to them. Once all of the submissions were received, the judges (including Nyberg; Bonnie Schrock, executive director of the National Quilt Museum in Kentucky; and Donna Shafer, associate director of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston) assigned scores to each to determine which squares would make it into the final quilts.

"Everybody had their own little take on it, and so it was really hard to pick the winners," said Nyberg. "There were in total some 400 submissions, including 70 or so from students or school teams."

For her own part, Nyberg contributed an appliqué art of the moon and Earth, which forms the lower right corner of the students' quilt and then, in a similar style to her moon pattern, created the border surrounding "A Tapestry of Collaboration."

"I tried to design both of my submissions so they match each other," Nyberg said.

Related: NASA's Artemis program: Everything you need to know

Her border for the second quilt included inspirational phrases related to the pursuit of exploration, such as "Dare mighty things," "From imagination to reality" and "Together, we achieve greatness." That last one in particular echoes the Kennedy Center's goal to bring people together through the presentation of art.

"A quilt is made up of a lot of small pieces," said Nyberg. "You can look close up to see each block, and each is a piece of art on its own. Then you can step back and look at what it becomes when all of those pieces come together. It is a very beautiful thing. I think that collaboration on all levels, and especially internationally, is extremely important."

"The Next Giant Leap: Lunar Quilts," as well as Karen Nyberg's separate mosaics celebrating women in space history, are at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. during the Earth to Space festival through April 13, 2025.

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on X at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2025 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.

NASA on April 4, 2025 released its long-awaited mission patch for the first mission to fly astronauts to the moon in more than 50 years. To celebrate, the Artemis 2 insignia was projected that night onto the exterior of the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Why is this amazing?

The release of the mission patch, while minor in comparison to other milestones, is another step forward to returning astronauts to the moon more than a half century after the Apollo program ended. The Artemis 2 crew of Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen will become the first people to fly on NASA's Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which are being stacked together in the VAB.

The Artemis 2 launch is currently targeted for no later than April 2026.

How big is that projection?

The projected Artemis 2 patch appears to be about the same size as the painted NASA "meatball" logo above it, such that each is more than 100 feet (30 meters) tall.

Of course it was a lot easier and quicker to project the Artemis 2 insignia than it was to apply the NASA emblem. The last time the latter needed to be reapplied, it required 700 gallons of red, white and blue paint.

What is happening behind the projected patch?

Inside the VAB's High Bay 3, the Space Launch System rocket's core stage and side-mounted solid rocket boosters have been mated and stand ready for pre-flight tests atop a mobile launch platform. Next, the launch vehicle stage adapter will be lifted and secured atop the core stage.

From there, the interim cryogenic propulsion stage, Orion stage adapter, and the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 2 mission will be added to the stack, completing the SLS's launch configuration.

Where can I learn more?

You can read more about the Artemis 2 crew patch and the progress stacking the mission's rocket for launch.

NASA on Thursday (April 3) debuted the official Artemis 2 insignia, its first emblem for a moon-bound crew in more than 50 years. Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen will wear the patch when they launch on the Artemis 2 mission, currently targeted for no later than April 2026.

"This patch designates the mission as 'AII,' signifying not only the second major flight of the Artemis campaign, but also an endeavor of discovery that seeks to explore for all and by all," wrote the crew in their description of the mission patch.

The emblem includes design elements that symbolize the past, present and future of human space exploration.

Related: NASA's Artemis 2 mission: Everything you need to know

Borrowing the same outline as NASA's Artemis program patch (as well as the shape of the "A" in "AII" and the red trajectory line forming the crossbar of the "A" and the path between Earth and the moon), the border frames an artistic depiction of "Earthrise." The now-iconic image of our home planet hovering above the lunar horizon was captured by the Apollo 8 crew, the first humans to fly to the moon.

The Artemis 2 crew will not enter lunar orbit like Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders did in December 1968, but will share in seeing some of the same sights as they did while flying beyond the moon and then looping back to return to Earth.

"The scene of the Earth and the moon represents the dual nature of human spaceflight, both equally compelling," wrote the Artemis 2 astronauts. "The moon represents our exploration destination, focused on discovery of the unknown. The Earth represents home, focused on the perspective we gain when we look back at our shared planet and learn what it is to be uniquely human."

The orbit depicted around Earth on the patch is intended to highlight the ongoing exploration missions that have enabled the Artemis program to set its sights on a long-term presence on the moon "and soon, Mars."

The crew's surnames in the lower left corner of the patch complete the design.

The Artemis 2 insignia is absent any country flags, though red, white and blue are the prevalent colors on the otherwise black and gray patch. Mission commander Wiseman, pilot Glover and mission specialist Koch are American astronauts, while mission specialist Hansen is from Canada. He will be the first person from a nation other than the U.S. to fly to the moon.

Hansen, together with the Canadian Space Agency, earlier revealed his personal patch for the mission. It features Indigenous art as a sign of respect for Canada's original explorers.

In addition to being humanity's first mission to the moon since 1972, the Artemis 2 mission will mark the first test flight of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft with astronauts on board.

Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen will log more than 600,000 miles (965,000 kilometers) as they fly around the moon and back, including possibly traveling farther into space than any astronauts have flown before.

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The Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) flew aboard Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, the first privately funded lunar lander to make a fully successful touchdown on the moon.

After Blue Ghost's historic landing on March 2, the EDS demonstrated the ability to remove lunar dust and dirt, known as regolith, from surfaces using electrodynamic forces. The successful test concluded on March 16.

NASA has big plans for the moon via its Artemis program, which aims to set up one or more lunar bases in the next decade or so. But regolith presents a significant issue for lunar hardware, spacesuits and human lungs, because the dust is so abrasive. So the shield technology passing this recent test is good news, the agency said.

Related: Here's what NASA sent to the moon on Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander

"This milestone marks a significant step toward sustaining long-term lunar and interplanetary operations by reducing dust-related hazards to a variety of surfaces for space applications ranging from thermal radiators, solar panels and camera lenses to spacesuits, boots and helmet visors," NASA wrote in a statement.

The EDS was originally derived from the Electrostatic Curtain concept, which F.B. Tatum and NASA collaborators dreamed up back in 1967.

The EDS uses electrodes and electric fields to remove dust from the surface of objects. It was developed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida using funding from NASA's Game Changing Development Program.

The shielding technology was tested in vacuum chambers, where it was used to remove lunar dust samples brought home by NASA's Apollo missions. The first time EDS was tested in space was on the International Space Station, during the Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE)-11 mission in 2019.

"The EDS technology is paving the way for future dust mitigation solutions, supporting NASA's Artemis campaign and beyond," NASA officials said in the release.

As seen from inside the well deck on board the USS Somerset, NASA and Department of Defense teams practiced recovery procedures in support of the agency's plans to send the Artemis 2 astronauts around the moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

Why is this amazing?

It has been more than 50 years since a crew splashed down on Earth after flying to the moon. Now NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense are preparing to do that again in support of the space agency's upcoming Artemis 2 mission, which will fly four astronauts around the moon before returning to Earth and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.

Unlike during the Apollo program, when helicopters were used to hoist the crew and command module onto the flight deck of U.S. Navy airfcraft carriers, the Artemis program is using amphibious transport dock ships that have open well decks to envelop the Orion capsule.

Who took part in this practice?

Several astronauts participated in the NASA Artemis Underway Recovery Test-12 in late March 2025. Among them were Artemis 2 pilot Victor Glover, as well backup crew member Andre Douglas and NASA astronauts Stan Love and Deniz Burnham. ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano also took part in the training exercise.

Others involved included Capt. Andrew "Andy" Koy, commanding officer the USS Somerset, his crew and NASA's Artemis 2 landing and recovery director Liliana Villarreal with the agency's Exploration Ground Systems Program out of Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

What will happen on the Artemis II mission?

As NASA's first crewed mission to the moon since 1972, the Artemis 2 mission will be the first test flight of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, Orion spacecraft and supporting ground system with astronauts aboard. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch of NASA and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen will log more than 600,000 miles (965,000 kilometers) as they fly around the moon and back, including possibly traveling farther into space than crew has done before.

The mission, which is targeted to launch no later than April 2026, will set the stage for future Artemis crews to land at the moon's south pole. There, astronauts will gain the experience needed to send humans to Mars.

Where can I learn more?

You can see the progress NASA has made stacking the Artemis 2 SLS rocket and read about earlier recovery tests in preparation for the mission.

On March 23, 2025, technicians working at NASA's Kennedy Space Center mated together major elements of the rocket that will launch the Artemis 2 mission with the first humans to the moon in more than 50 years.

Why is this amazing?

The core stage, which is covered in yellow-orange foam insulation, is the largest component of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, standing 212 feet tall (65 meters). In addition to holding the propellant for its four rear-mounted rocket engines, the core is the backbone of the rocket, supporting the launch vehicle stage adapter, interim cryogenic propulsion stage, Orion stage adapter and the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 2 mission.

Standing on either side of the core stage are twin five-segment solid rocket boosters, which were earlier stacked on the same mobile launch platform. Standing 177 feet tall (54 meters), the two boosters will provide the majority of the thrust needed to propel the four Artemis 2 astronauts on their journey around the moon.

Where is this?

From the vantage point of the photo, you are looking up and into High Bay 2 of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Floridia.

Once the most voluminous building in the world, the VAB was previously used to stack the Apollo-era Saturn V rocket and the space shuttles that flew for 30 years.

What happens next?

The launch vehicle stage adapter will be the next element of the SLS lifted and secured atop the core stage in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, the Orion spacecraft and its European Service Module have been stacked and configured for flight and are waiting their move to the VAB from the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at the Kennedy Space Center.

Once fully assembled, the Orion topped SLS will be rolled out to Launch Complex 39B for testing. The Artemis 2 mission is targeted for launch no earlier than April 2026.

Where can I learn more?

You can read and see more from the stacking of the Artemis 2 core stage and boosters, as well as learn more about NASA's Artemis 2 mission.

You can also follow the latest updates about the Artemis 2 mission here.

The core stage of NASA's next Space Launch System (SLS) rocket recently completed integration with the vehicle's side boosters inside the agency's Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida. SLS will launch NASA's Artemis 2 mission to fly four astronauts aboard an Orion spacecraft around the moon and back sometime next year.

"Technicians joined the core stage March 23 with the stacked solid rocket boosters for the mission at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC)," NASA officials wrote in a statement Monday (March 24). SLS's solid rocket boosters are responsible for lofting the 322-foot (98-meter), fully stacked vehicle through the first stage of launch. Each booster stands 177 feet (54 meters) tall, and together they provide more than three quarters of SLS's total thrust at liftoff.

Using one of the VAB's massive overhead cranes, technicians transferred the 212-foot (65-meter) SLS core stage from its recent home in High Bay 2, to the building's "transfer aisle" earlier this month. On Sunday (March 23), the stage was reoriented and moved to the facility's High Bay 3, where it has now joined with its solid rocket boosters atop the mobile launcher.

Other parts of the Artemis 2 SLS have also come together in recent weeks as well, including the solar panels and spacecraft adapter jettison fairings on the mission's Orion capsule and European-built service module. In the coming months, the capsule and module will join the full SLS stack in the VAB, sitting atop the rocket's interim cryogenic propulsion stage.

Artemis 2 is the second mission of NASA's Artemis Program, meant to establish a long-term human presence on the moon. Artemis 1 launched an uncrewed Orion into lunar orbit and back in Nov. 2022. Artemis 2 will be the first crewed mission of the program, and will launch the first astronauts to circle the moon since the final Apollo flight in 1972.

Aboard Orion for the lunar loop-around will be NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman as Artemis 2 commander, Victor Glover as mission pilot and Christina Koch as mission specialist. Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen will also be part of the crew. NASA has not yet announced the crew for Artemis 3, but has long billed it as the mission to send the first woman and first person of color to the lunar surface — astronauts Koch and Glover happen to fall into these categories, respectively. However, the language "first woman" and "first person of color" has recently been deleted from the agency's Artemis websites amid a push from the Trump administration to end Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) efforts.

NASA is currently targeting Spring 2026 for the launch of Artemis 2, with Artemis 3 scheduled to follow in 2027. The missions had been slated to launch in 2025 and 2026, but unexpected damage to Orion's heat shield during Artemis 1 prompted NASA to delay both by more than a year.

The change appeared this weekend as NASA continues to cancel programs dedicated to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) as well as purge its websites of any language related to these efforts. These decisions are guided by the Trump administration's push to end programs and close offices related to DEIA efforts in order to eliminate what it deems "immense public waste and shameful discrimination," according to the White House.

The agency's latest move, however, appears to have impacted its Artemis program websites. All mentions of landing the first person of color and first woman on the moon have been taken down from plans posted online, the Orlando Sentinel reported. While it's unclear how the removal of this language might affect astronaut assignments for NASA's planned moon missions, a NASA spokesperson told Space.com that "it is important to note that the change in language does not indicate a change in crew assignments."

In addition to the statement above, the spokesperson gave Space.com the following statement, identical to ones given to other news outlets following the change in language on its Artemis program websites:

"In accordance with an Executive Order signed by President Trump, NASA is updating its language to better reflect the core mission of the Artemis campaign: returning astronauts to the lunar surface. NASA remains committed to aligning with White House guidance and ensuring mission success."

The agency's Artemis program website previously stated that NASA "will land the first woman, first person of color, and first international partner astronaut on the moon," according to an archived version of the site available online.

The current version of the site states that "With NASA’s Artemis campaign, we are exploring the moon for scientific discovery, technology advancement, and to learn how to live and work on another world as we prepare for human missions to Mars."

As has been shown so far, federal agencies have been swift with their response to the Trump administration's abrupt requests for them to implement changes in workflow.

Trump signed a series of executive orders within days of being sworn in for his second term asking federally funded organizations to take action in various ways, one of which was indeed the mandate of closing offices and ending any related programs associated with DEIA efforts. Acting NASA administrator Janet Petro sent a memo to agency employees following that executive order stating that the agency's DEIA programs "divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination."

NASA isn't the only agency complying with White House orders; other federally funded science organizations — for instance, the Rubin Observatory — have been deleting DEIA-related content from their websites as well.

NASA has also slashed its workforce significantly as part of the Trump administration's efforts to reduce federal spending. It's unknown to what extent the agency's budgets or workforce could be reduced.

NASA has partnered with the crowdsourcing company Freelancer to run the contest, which is open through May 27 to elementary school students and adults, working as individuals, classrooms or teams, in the U.S. or a non-designated country (countries that are not party to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade [GATT] or a Free Trade Agreement [FTA] with the U.S.). Depending on their age, up to 25 selected entries will win $1,225 each or an Artemis prize pack.

The contest is seeking designs which will be assembled by NASA's thermal blanket lab for flight. As such, submissions need to be original; relevant to a global audience, representing humanity; and meaningful to the Artemis 2 mission and astronauts. The finished ZGI needs to be able to fit into a 6-inch square (15.25-cm) box and weigh no heavier than 0.75 pounds (0.34 kg).

For safety reasons, the designs can only be made using Nomex thread; faux fur, polyester or cotton fabric; Beta cloth, Kevlar or Vinyl; Kapton/VDA polyimide film; and poly-fil for stuffing. No other materials are allowed.

The tradition of flying zero-gravity indicators began in the former Soviet Union with the world's first human spaceflight. In 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin carried a small doll with him aboard his Vostok capsule to see it float. Since then, many of Gagarin's fellow cosmonauts have flown toys and stuffed dolls as talisman and ZGI, often at the suggestion of their children.

"Giraffiti flew with me on my one and only flight to the International Space Station," said Wiseman, holding up a plush toy giraffe. "He still has a little bit of stitching on his neck so that he can be hung up in our Soyuz [spacecraft]."

"This was the first gift my mom ever gave to my first born daughter, so this was very sentimental," he told the audience at SXSW.

The ZGI custom migrated to the U.S. with the first flights of NASA's Commercial Crew program, with both SpaceX and Boeing launching their missions with toys on board. Some of those ZGI have included a plush Earth globe, a sequined dinosaur and a sparkly narwhal.

NASA's uncrewed Artemis 1 mission, which flew around the moon in 2022, carried a custom-made Snoopy doll, complete with a miniature version of the same pressure suit that the Artemis 2 astronauts will wear on Orion. The Peanuts comic strip beagle spent most of the 25.5-day flight floating at the end of a leash (tether) as he logged more than 1.4 million miles (2.3 million km).

Snoopy has been the safety mascot at NASA since before the first crewed Apollo launch in 1968 and more recently has joined the full Peanuts gang as a symbol for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education and the Artemis deep space missions.

NASA will ultimately choose one of the winning entries of the "Moon Mascot: NASA Artemis II ZGI Design Challenge" to fly on the mission. The winning designs will be announced on or before July 31, 2025.

"The indicator will float alongside Victor, Christina, Jeremy, and me as we go around the far side of the Moon and remind us of all of you back on Earth," said Wiseman.

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The Houston-based company's second lunar lander, named Athena, touched down at the Mons Mouton region of the moon's south pole on schedule today (March 6) at 12:31 p.m. EST (1731 GMT).

It wasn't a picture-perfect landing, however. While Athena is sending data home to Earth and generating power on the lunar surface, the spacecraft does not seem to have landed fully upright as planned.

"We don't believe we're in the correct attitude on the surface of the moon yet again," Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said in a post-landing press conference this afternoon.

As that "yet again" indicates, it was a déjà vu moment for Intuitive Machines, which pulled off the first-ever private moon landing last year with its Odysseus spacecraft.

Odysseus came in a bit too fast during its February 2024 descent, breaking one of its legs and tipping partway over onto its side, a configuration that hampered its ability to communicate with Earth. Though more data is needed to nail everything down, something similar has apparently happened to Athena, Altemus said.

The lander's surface mission profile "will be off-nominal, because we're not getting everything that we had asked for in terms of power generation, communications, et cetera," he said.

Related: SpaceX rocket launches private moon lander and NASA 'trailblazer' to hunt for lunar water (video)

Hunting for ice near the moon's south pole

The 13-foot-tall (4 meters) Athena launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Feb. 26. The lander's mission, known as IM-2, is sponsored by NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which puts agency science and technology instruments on private moon landers. The agency booked a ride on Athena for $62.5 million.

The goal is to gather a wealth of cost-effective data about the lunar environment ahead of the arrival of Artemis astronauts, who are slated to land near the lunar south pole in 2027 and later set up one or more bases in the region.

The south pole makes sense for a crewed outpost; the area is thought to harbor lots of water ice, especially on crater floors that lie in permanent shadow. Ice has been building up in these cold traps for billions of years, scientists think.

Mons Mouton is just 100 miles (160 kilometers) or so from the south pole of the moon — closer to the lunar region than any other spacecraft has landed before. If all goes according to plan, IM-2 will help researchers assess the extent and accessibility of the area's ice, which could perhaps be used for drinking water and also split into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen to make rocket propellant.

Athena's main payload is the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment, or PRIME-1 for short. PRIME-1 consists of a drill designed to pull up lunar dirt from about 3 feet (0.9 meters) underground and a mass spectrometer, which will look for the signature of water ice and other interesting compounds in the sample.

"This experiment marks a significant milestone, as it will be the first robotic drilling activity conducted in the moon's South Pole region," Jackie Quinn, PRIME-1 project manager at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said in a press conference on Feb. 25. "It's a crucial step towards understanding and harnessing lunar resources to support future exploration."

Related: The moon once had way more water than we ever imagined

Ride-along rovers and a little hopper named Grace

Athena is also carrying another spacecraft built by Intuitive Machines — a 77-pound (35-kilogram) "hopper" named Grace, after pioneering mathematician and computer scientist Grace Hopper.

If all is well with IM-2, the little hopper will deploy from Athena and then explore the area around the landing site, launching itself from place to place using its thrusters. One of those hops will take Grace into a permanently shadowed crater — a place no wheeled rover could reach.

"The idea is that, if you have a really deep crater and you want to get down into that crater, why not do it with something like a drone?" Trent Martin, senior vice president of space systems at Intuitive Machines, told reporters during a briefing on Feb. 7.

Grace isn't the only robot that caught a ride to the lunar surface on Athena. The lander is also carrying a small rover called MAPP (Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform), which was built by the Colorado company Lunar Outpost.

MAPP is outfitted with high-resolution optical and thermal cameras. And it's carrying a ride-along robot of its own — an "AstroAnt," a prototype tiny swarm robot developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. AstroAnt will remain affixed to MAPP's top thanks to its four magnetic wheels.

Athena, Grace and MAPP will stay in contact with each other using Nokia's Lunar Surface Communication System, a payload on the lander that aims to set up the first-ever 4G/LTE network on the moon. Athena also carries a Lonestar data server on the moon as part of technology demonstration.

There's yet another rover on board Athena as well — a 17.6-ounce (498-gram) tech-demonstrating robot called Yaoki, which was built by the Japanese company Dymon.

The IM-2 mission is expected to last for about 10 Earth days on the lunar surface. It will come to an end when the sun sets over the Mons Mouton region, depriving the solar-powered Athena of life-giving light.

All of this is contingent on Athena being healthy and oriented correctly after its lunar touchdown, of course. And it's too early to say which payloads will be affected by the apparently off-nominal touchdown, Intuitive Machines representatives said during today's post-landing briefing. That assessment will be made after Athena's orientation is fully understood.

Private moon exploration on the rise

IM-2 is part of a new wave of private lunar exploration. For example, Firefly Aerospace successfully put its Blue Ghost lander down in the Mare Crisium ("Sea of Crises") region of the moon's northern hemisphere just this past Sunday (March 2).

Blue Ghost, like Athena and Odysseus before it, is flying a CLPS mission; it holds a suite of 10 NASA science instruments that are gathering a variety of data on the lunar surface.

Blue Ghost launched on Jan. 15 with another private lunar lander — Resilience, built and operated by the Tokyo-based company ispace. Resilience is taking a longer, more looping path to the moon than either Blue Ghost or Athena; it's expected to make its landing attempt on June 5. (Resilience is not flying a CLPS mission, but it will collect lunar dirt and rock for NASA using a microrover named Tenacious.)

"I am proud to say that this is a very busy and exciting time in lunar — and, soon, Mars — exploration, and we are anticipating an even busier cadence to come," Niki Werkheiser, director of technology maturation at NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, said during the Feb. 25 briefing.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 5:30 p.m. ET on March 6 with information from the post-landing briefing.

Update for 1 pm ET: Intuitive Machines landed its private Athena spacecraft near the south pole of the moon today, but the exact fate of the probe is unclear. The company confirmed that the Athena lander is on the lunar surface, but is working to confirm its orientation. A post-landing press conference is scheduled for 4 p.m. EST and will be simulcast on Space.com when it goes live.

A tiny commercial rover is set to land near the south pole of the moon today (March 6).

Colorado-based space firm Lunar Outpost's Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform, or MAPP, launched aboard Intuitive Machines' Athena moon lander on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida's Space Coast on Feb. 26. The spacecraft is now in lunar orbit preparing for its landing attempt.

Athena's mission, known as IM-2, is targeting a landing at around 12:32 p.m. EST (1732 GMT) today near Mons Mouton, in the lunar south pole region. You can watch the Athena moon landing live on Space.com.

If all goes well with landing, MAPP — also known as Lunar Outpost's Lunar Voyage 1 — will be the first American robotic rover on the moon, as well as the first private rover on a planetary body. It will deploy from Athena using a mechanism mounted on the lander's side. It will then get to work on the lunar surface with a suite of instruments and technologies.

Related: The private Athena moon lander will touch down near the moon's south pole today: Watch it live

The four-wheeled rover measures 17.7 by 15 by 15.7 inches (45 by 38 by 40 centimeters) and is designed to provide critical data on the navigability of the lunar environment to guide the design of lunar vehicles for future moon excursions and NASA's Artemis astronaut campaigns.

MAPP is expected to facilitate the first commercial sale of space resources by collecting a small amount of lunar regolith, which will be imaged and sold to NASA for a symbolic sum of $1. This transaction, while symbolic, is intended to set a legal precedent for space resource utilization and open the door for a lunar economy.

The rover also carries Nokia antennas that will deploy in order to test the Finnish company's LTE/4G communications system for the moon, which is one of 10 payloads from global partners on the vehicle. Among these is AstroAnt, a prototype micro swarm robot designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that will take contactless measurements of MAPP's temperature. AstroAnt is using advanced space-grade lubricants from Castrol. The Time-of-Flight Depth Camera for 3D mapping is one of two further MIT payloads aboard the rover. Other mission partners include the Juventus football club and Adidas.

"Lunar Voyage 1 is not just about exploration — it's about proving that private industry can operate, sustain, and create economic value on the moon," Justin Cyrus, Lunar Outpost CEO, said ahead of the landing attempt. "These historic accomplishments create real-world lunar infrastructure, resource utilization and planetary mobility — essential steps toward a lasting human presence beyond Earth."

Like Athena, MAPP is solar-powered and its mission lifetime is one lunar day, or around 14 Earth days. It is not expected to reactivate following the harsh low temperatures of lunar nighttime. MAPP's mission is just the first for Lunar Outpost, which is developing a series of rovers. The company is also competing for a NASA contract to build an unpressurized rover for a lunar test mission ahead of the Artemis 5 mission, currently scheduled for 2030.

MAPP is not the only mobile spacecraft aboard Athena. The rocket-powered, crater-diving Micro-Nova hopper, known as Grace, will be in action on the moon if Athena can stick the landing, as will Yaoki, a small rover built by the Japanese company Dymon.

Intuitive Machines' Athena moon lander is giving us some incredible views from lunar orbit ahead of its March 6 touchdown attempt.

Athena's mission, known as IM-2, is Houston-based Intuitive Machines' second jaunt to the moon. It's part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which contracts private companies to deliver agency science and technology payloads to the lunar surface. Athena launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida's Space Coast on Feb. 26 and entered lunar orbit this week after a short few days in transit.

Now that the lander is circling the moon, cameras aboard Athena are capturing stunning images of the surface below. In recent posts on X, Intuitive Machines provided a status update on the lander and shared some of what its cameras have captured. "Athena continues to be in excellent health, completing lunar orbits every two hours, waiting for the sun to rise on her intended south pole region landing site, Mons Mouton," one March 4 post says.

In another March 4 X post, the company shared a time-lapse video of a 10-minute segment from one the 39 orbits Athena will complete before making its landing attempt.

"This image sequence is from a separate public affairs camera and is made up of 240 images taken over a mid-latitude region over a 10-minute span. Each image is shown as 2 frames in this sequence," the post says.

Another March 4 video post features Mons Mouton and notes that it's one of the proposed landing sites for future NASA Artemis astronaut missions.

Mons Mouton is near the lunar south pole, where NASA wants to study water ice and other local resources that could be used to support longer-term crewed missions to the moon.

To help do this, Athena is carrying NASA's PRIME-1 payload, which will drill down into the surface of the moon to hunt for frozen water. PRIME-1, short for Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1, consists of a drill designed to dig up to 3 feet (1 meter) beneath the surface, and a mass spectrometer to analyze the sample the instrument collects.

Athena is also carrying a secondary spacecraft called Grace, which will "hop" around within a 1-mile (1.6 kilometers) radius of Athena's landing site to explore, among other things, the permanently shadowed section of a nearby crater.

Grace will be aided by another vehicle riding on Athena: MAPP (Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform), a small rover from Colorado-based company Lunar Outpost carrying the moon's first cellular network.

Athena's mission comes during a particularly active time for spacecraft around the moon. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander, which is also flying a CLPS mission, successfully touched down on the lunar surface on Sunday (March 2), beginning a two-week surface mission to conduct experiments at the moon's Mare Crisium region.

Another moon lander also has its sensors set on our nearest celestial neighbor. Resilience, from the Japanese exploration company ispace, launched on the same Falcon 9 that carried Blue Ghost to orbit in January. Resilience is taking a slower, low-energy trajectory to the moon, and is expected to land on June 5.

Intuitive Machines is targeting March 6 for Athena's landing, with high hopes for success above the company's first mission to the moon. IM-1 launched a similar lander, named Odysseus, in February 2024. Odysseus was able to reach the lunar surface safely, becoming the first private vehicle ever to do so, but it toppled onto its side in the process.

"This time, hopefully, we land in a more precise position," Trent Martin, Intuitive Machines' senior vice president of space systems, told Space.com before the IM-2 launch last week.

Coverage of Athena's landing attempt will begin at 11:30 a.m. EST (1630 GMT) on Thursday, with a targeted landing set for approximately 12:32 p.m. EST (1730 GMT). A livestream of the IM-2 landing will be carried on the Space.com homepage, NASA's NASA+ streaming service and on the Intuitive Machines YouTube channel.

If you're in the neighborhood, this year's nine-day event features a number of panels and guests that space enthusiasts will enjoy.

The 2050 Track focuses on "big-picture thinking" and scientific discovery, with plenty of space-related themes. We picked out four awesome panels to check out at SXSW 2025.

Meet the astronauts flying on NASA's Artemis 2 moon mission

March 7 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CST, Austin Convention Center, Ballroom EF

Four astronauts will appear for the "Meet the Astronauts Going to the Moon with NASA's Artemis 2" panel. Pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and commander Reid Wiseman, all from NASA, as well as mission specialist Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency, will talk to guests about their upcoming mission to fly past the moon— the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.

The uncrewed Artemis 1 mission launched to lunar orbit in November 2021 to collect engineering and radiation data, which ensured that the Space Launch System megarocket and Orion spacecraft can safely carry humans on the Artemis 2 lunar flyby mission. The earliest that Artemis 2 will launch is April 2026. The astronauts will fly near the moon aboard Orion to collect data that will help the next mission, Artemis 3, send astronauts to the moon's surface in 2027.

Related: NASA's Artemis program: Everything you need to know

Learn about Europe's Euclid 'dark universe' space telescope

March 10 from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. CST; Austin Marriott Downtown, Waterloo Ballroom 1-2

Experts from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will come together to discuss the Euclid space telescope's fascinating work for the "Using ESA's Euclid Telescope To Probe The Dark Universe" panel. Launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on July 1, 2023, Euclid is the first space telescope built with the purpose of helping scientists understand the invisible parts of the universe: dark energy and dark matter.

Over the Euclid mission's expected six-year lifespan, the spacecraft will chart over 1.5 billion galaxies, generating a massive dataset for astrophysicists to study. Euclid recently discovered an "Einstein ring," a ring of light created when a distant object, like a galaxy, becomes distorted by gravity. The light-forming Einstein ring that Euclid snapped a photo of had been traveling to us for about 4.4 billion years.

The panel's experts are senior research scientist Jason Rhodes (NASA/JPL), research associate Guadalupe Canas Herrera (ESA), multimedia lead for the NASA's Astrophysics Division Elizabeth Landau, and postdoctoral researcher Marco Bonici (University of Waterloo).

The era of the private moon lander

March 10 at 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. CST; Austin Marriott Downtown, Waterloo Ballroom 1-2

This panel, called "A Fast and Furious Return to the Moon," examines the role that private companies are playing in moon missions. That role is getting bigger and bigger; on Sunday morning (March 2), for example, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost spacecraft became the second commercial craft to land on the moon, delivering 10 NASA science payloads to the Mare Crisium ("Sea of Crises") region of the lunar near side.

Intuitive Machines' Odysseus spacecraft was the first private lander to survive its lunar touchdown, doing so in February 2024. The Houston-based company's second lander, named Athena, just arrived in lunar orbit ahead of a Thursday (March 6) touchdown try. And yet another private lander — Resilience, built by Tokyo-based ispace — is en route to the moon, on a long and looping path that should get it there in late May or early June.

Participants in the March 10 SXSW panel include Firefly CEO Jason Kim and Regina Blue, the deputy programmatic manager for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS for short. CLPS books rides for agency science gear on private landers. Blue Ghost is flying under the CLPS banner, like Odysseus and Athena (though Resilience is not).

Telescopes of the future

March 9 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CST; Austin Marriott Downtown, Waterloo Ballroom 3

John Mulchaey, Carnegie Science's deputy for science and the Carnegie Observatories' director and chair, will lead a discussion on the march of progress for telescopes, both on the ground and in space, during the "Talking Telescopes: The Future of American Observation" panel. Guests can expect to learn about how global collaboration and investment play an important role in the telescopes of the future.

In recent telescope news, NASA's SPHEREx space telescope, which will map the sky in 3D, is scheduled to launch March 4, with a livestream of the action. The James Webb Space Telescope is hunting for dark matter, and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope just provided important data to help scientists determine that a potentially problematic asteroid's trajectory will probably miss Earth. If you're looking to skygaze on your own, here are our 2025 picks for the best telescopes.

The Athena lander fired its engines for eight minutes and 12 seconds on Monday (March 3), slowing the spacecraft down and entering lunar orbit. Athena is now all set to make a landing attempt later this week.

The mission's flight team applauded a successful lunar orbit insertion after engine shutdown was confirmed, a video from Houston-based Intuitive Machines showed.

"Athena completed her scheduled 492-second main engine Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) burn at 6:27 a.m. CST on March 3 and is currently orbiting the moon," Intuitive Machines stated in a post on X on Monday.

Related: Private Athena moon lander beams home gorgeous views of Earth from space (photos)

Flight controllers will next analyze data to verify the lander's targeted circular orbit in order to confirm the time of Athena's expected landing attempt, which is slated for Thursday.

"Athena continues to be in excellent health and is expected to send lunar orbit selfies over the next two days before a landing attempt on March 6," the X post continued.

The Athena mission, also known as IM-2, launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral on Feb. 26.

If all goes well, Athena will land near the moon's south pole. There, it will hunt for lunar water using a payload called PRIME-1 ("Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1"), which consists of a deep-digging drill and a mass spectrometer. It also carries a hopping spacecraft called Grace designed to explore a crater near the landing site, and MAPP, a small rover from the Colorado company Lunar Outpost.

Athena entered lunar orbit just a day after fellow Texas company Firefly Aerospace aced its own lunar landing, with the Blue Ghost lander successfully touching down on the moon at Mare Crisium.

Both Blue Ghost and Athena are part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which seeks to send the agency's science payloads to the moon on privately developed landers.

Athena's lunar orbit insertion also follows up on Intuitive Machines' historic achievement with its first lander, the Odysseus IM-1 spacecraft, which in February 2024 became the first-ever successful moon landing by a private spacecraft, despite tipping over.

Meanwhile, Japanese private space exploration company ispace is also headed for the moon. Its Resilience lander launched along with Blue Ghost on Jan. 15 and is currently on a low-energy trajectory to the moon with the aim of setting up a landing attempt in late May or early June.

With the launch of Intuitive Machines' Athena spacecraft atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket last night (Feb. 27), three lunar landers are currently on their way to the moon. Such a surge of exploration has never happened before — and all three vehicles are operated by private companies.

“Athena joining a historic wave of lunar landers on their way to the moon is an extraordinary moment,” Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said in a statement this morning (Feb. 28).

"While the most vital part of this mission lies ahead, we believe this is a signal that lunar services are rapidly advancing alongside civil and commercial intent to establish a foothold on the moon to reach further into the solar system," he added.

The other two private landers — Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and Resilience, built by Tokyo-based ispace — launched atop the same SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Jan. 15.

Blue Ghost, like Athena, is flying under the flag of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which puts agency science gear on private robotic landers. The goal is to gather data that will help pave the way for NASA's Artemis astronauts, who are scheduled to touch down near the moon's south pole a few years from now and then establish one or more bases in the water-rich region over the ensuing years.

Blue Ghost and its 10 NASA payloads have been circling the moon for two weeks and are scheduled to land in the Mare Crisium ("Sea of Crises") region of the lunar near side early Sunday morning (March 2). Athena, which totes a small "hopper" named Grace and a rover from Colorado company Lunar Outpost along with its NASA science gear, will follow suit four days later. Athena will land just five degrees of latitude away from the south pole — closer than any other mission has gotten.

Resilience is taking a much longer, more circuitous route to the moon; the Japanese lander isn't expected to reach lunar orbit until late May or early June. It will make its touchdown attempt shortly thereafter.

Resilience isn't flying a CLPS mission. However, the lander does carry a tiny rover called Tenacious, which was built by ispace's Luxembourg-based subsidiary. Tenacious will collect samples of moon dirt for NASA, though there are no plans at the moment to get this material back to Earth.

Related: SpaceX rocket launches private moon lander and NASA 'trailblazer' to hunt for lunar water (video)

To date, just one private spacecraft has ever landed successfully on the moon — Intuitive Machines' Odysseus, which did so in February 2024. Others have come close; for example, ispace's first lander reached lunar orbit in March 2023 but crashed during its touchdown attempt a month later. (Resilience is the Japanese company's second moon lander.)

Athena launched with several other spacecraft last night, including Odin, a scouting probe built by the asteroid-mining company Astroforge, and NASA's water-hunting Lunar Trailblazer.

Lunar Trailblazer is also moon-bound, though it's headed for orbit rather than the surface. Lunar Trailblazer is taking an even more looping path than Resilience; the 440-pound (200-kilogram) NASA probe is expected to reach Earth's nearest neighbor in early July.

Athena, the second moon lander from Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida's Space Coast on Wednesday evening (Feb. 26).

Shortly after deploying into the final frontier, Athena snapped a few selfies with Earth in the background, including one that shows the Falcon 9's upper stage drifting in the void beneath the lander. (Bright specks visible near the rocket stage may be some of the other payloads that launched with Athena, such as NASA's Lunar Trailblazer orbiter and Odin, a probe built by the asteroid-mining company Astroforge.)

As those photos suggest, all is going well so far with Athena's mission, which is called IM-2.

Related: SpaceX rocket launches private moon lander and NASA 'trailblazer' to hunt for lunar water (video)

"Athena established a stable attitude, solar charging and radio communications contact with the Company's mission operations center in Houston after liftoff on February 26," Intuitive Machines wrote in an update this morning (Feb. 27).

"The lander is in excellent health and preparing for a series of planned main engine firings to refine her trajectory ahead of lunar orbit insertion, which is planned for March 3. Intuitive Machines expects a lunar landing opportunity on March 6."

IM-2 is flying via NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which puts agency science and technology instruments on private moon landers. The goal is to gather a wealth of cost-efficient lunar data ahead of the arrival of Artemis astronauts a few years from now.

Athena's chief payload is PRIME-1 ("Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1"), which consists of a deep-digging drill and a mass spectrometer. Together, this gear will help scientists assess the abundance and accessibility of water ice at Athena's landing site near the lunar south pole.

Athena is also carrying Grace, a novel hopping spacecraft built by Intuitive Machines that will explore a crater near the landing site, and MAPP, a small rover from the Colorado company Lunar Outpost. These three robots will stay in touch thanks to another IM-2 payload, Nokia's Lunar Surface Communication System, which will establish the first-ever 4G/LTE network on the moon.

Intuitive Machines' first lunar lander, Odysseus, touched down successfully on the moon in February 2024, becoming the first private craft ever to do so. But Athena won't be the second to pull off the feat, if all goes according to plan.

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander is gearing up for its own touchdown attempt, which will take place in the early hours of March 2. Blue Ghost launched on Jan. 15 along with Resilience, a lunar lander built by Tokyo-based company ispace, which will try try to touch down in late May or early June.

As Intuitive Machines' IM-2 lunar lander sat on the pad awaiting its nighttime launch, a meeting of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology's space and aeronautics subcommittee took place on Feb. 26 to discuss the next steps of the Artemis program and how it plays into efforts to get to Mars.

In the hearing, titled "Step by Step: The Artemis Program and NASA's Path to Human Exploration of the Moon, Mars, and Beyond", two longtime space policy experts, Dr. Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, and Dan Dumbacher, Adjunct Professor at Purdue University, told the hearing that getting to the moon was imperative, with China planning its own crewed landing before 2030.

"Our global competitors, primarily China and its allies, are out planning and outpacing us in their drive to become dominant in space. This is a critical national security and economic concern," said Dumbacher.

To get to the moon, both agreed that the Space Launch System (SLS) needs to play a key role, but differ on the degree.

Dumbacher stated that the number of Starship launches needed to demonstrate its capabilities means that the chances of it delivering humans to the moon by 2030 was "remote at best." Pace suggested taking a different route

"It's time to consider alternatives for going to the Earth, to the moon and back." Pace said. "Ideally, NASA should be able to buy heavy lift services to send humans to the moon. A revised Artemis campaign plan should be a high priority for the new administrator."

"I would say the immediate campaign plan, if you will, for the next several missions is going to be important to get there ahead of the Chinese and then we need to be able to think: how are we going to stay there in a way that's sustainable and affordable?"

All of this plays into a wider competition with China and global space leadership, the witnesses stated. Going to the moon would also allow the U.S. to learn things necessary for going to Mars in the future.

"For U.S. leadership to be effective, human space exploration missions cannot be 'one and done' but must be repeatable and sustainable, with continuous presence as the norm," said Pace, while Dumbacher also said the U.S. needs a sustainable lunar presence which is sustainable technically, economically, politically.

NASA was also a topic of hot discussion in the light of recent actions from the Trump administration, including the termination of probationary employees which was halted at the eleventh hour, and confusion and turmoil after a "what did you do last week" email to federal workers.

Amid the apparent race with China, there was uncertainty over the direction of NASA and the future of some of its employees.

"The chaos, the confusion, the whiplash, intimidation and bullying of the workforce is agency and government wide," Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren from California said. "Every day, NASA employees are worried that they or their colleagues are going to be arbitrarily fired."

The effects were worrying, Dumbacher said. "Over the weekend, I had the chance to talk with former students, NASA employees, that are scared … And believe me, they are some of the smartest people.

"I am more than happy to turn over the future to them, and they they are concerned, and they see that, and they are actually questioning, what are they going to do for their careers, and looking at other opportunities, which I think is terribly sad because of the national imperative that we have and the global competition that we are engaged in," Dumbacher said.

At the same time, representatives raised issues of bureaucracy and procurement issues standing in the way of utilizing private sector innovation and resulting in increased costs. Reducing regulatory burdens and encouraging a culture of calculated risk-taking were proposed solutions.

NASA did not provide a witness nor testimony for the hearing, despite being invited to do so.