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What Is NASA's Artemis Program, and When Will Humans Land on the Moon Again?

Category: Space & Astronomy

Apollo 17 was the last Apollo mission to put people on the Moon. In April 2026, four astronauts flew around it, farther from Earth than any humans had ever been, and did not land. That is the story of NASA's Artemis program so far, in brief.

What is Artemis trying to do, what actually happened in 2026, and why is the first new landing still some time away? [1]

1. Why Has No One Walked on the Moon Since 1972?

Apollo 17 was the last Apollo flight to the Moon. Its crew was Eugene Cernan, Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, and Ronald Evans. Cernan and Schmitt landed, while Evans stayed in orbit in the command module. Schmitt was a geologist, a scientist who studies rocks, and NASA describes him as the first scientist to step onto the Moon. The two spent more than 73 hours on the surface, and Cernan is remembered as the last person to leave footprints there. [2]

Nobody has stood on the Moon since. Artemis is the name NASA gave to its plan to send people back. This article uses "Artemis" for the whole program and "Artemis II" for one flight within it. [1]

2. What Is Artemis Trying to Do Besides Visit the Moon Again?

NASA says it is returning to the Moon to advance scientific discovery, to create economic opportunities, and to inspire new explorers. It also treats the Moon as a stepping stone: skills learned there are meant to prepare the first crewed missions to Mars. [1]

That is why the plan is not "go once and come home." NASA's March 2026 announcement describes a Moon Base in three phases: build, test and learn; establish early infrastructure; and enable long-duration human presence. [3]

A simple way to picture it is a camping trip. Before you try a long hike far from home, you sleep one night in a tent nearby to find out what you forgot. The Moon is much farther away than a nearby campsite, but the idea of practicing close to home first is similar. This comparison is our own, not NASA's.

3. What Did the Artemis II Flight Do in April 2026?

Artemis II lifted off on April 1, 2026, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The rocket was NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), and the crew rode in an Orion spacecraft. The four astronauts were Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch of NASA, and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. NASA lists the mission length as 9 days, 1 hour, and 32 minutes. [4]

It was a flyby: the crew flew around the Moon and came back, without landing. Before it, in November 2022, Artemis I had tested the same rocket and spacecraft with no one on board. [1]

NASA reports that the Artemis II crew traveled 252,756 miles (about 406,800 kilometers) from Earth, a record for the greatest distance humans have been from Earth. [1] Wikipedia's article on the mission, which was the only place we found these details, gives the old record from Apollo 13 as 248,655 miles and the closest approach to the Moon as about 4,067 miles (6,545 kilometers), and says the capsule, named Integrity by its crew, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego on April 10 local time. We treat those extra numbers as reported, not confirmed by NASA pages we could read. [5]

4. Why Is the Next Artemis Flight Not a Moon Landing?

You might expect Artemis III to land. It was once planned that way. NASA's March 24, 2026 announcement changed the plan: Artemis III, scheduled for 2027, will test integrated systems and operations in Earth orbit, and the landing comes on Artemis IV. [3]

NASA's Artemis page adds the details. Artemis III is a low Earth orbit test in which Orion practices meeting and docking with test versions of commercial landers from Blue Origin and SpaceX. Artemis IV, planned for 2028, would be the first crewed landing of the program, with the crew moving from Orion into a commercial lander for the trip down. Artemis V is anticipated in 2028 as well, with NASA aiming for one mission per year after that. [1]

The same announcement said NASA intends to pause Gateway, a planned small space station that would orbit the Moon, "in its current form," and shift its focus to equipment for sustained work on the surface. [3]

Notice that the plan has already changed more than once. Dates here are NASA's targets as published in 2026, not promises.

5. How Can You Follow the Artemis Plan Yourself?

Because the schedule moves, the best habit is to go to the source. NASA's Artemis pages list each mission, its crew, and its current target year, and they change when the plan does. [1]

Here are two questions to carry with you. When a new date is announced, is it a target or a launch that is actually under way? And what does each flight test that the one before it did not? Try answering them for Artemis III, then check the NASA page to see how close you were.

If the Moon is visible, look for it from a safe place, such as a window. People walked there once, and people are working on going back.

Sources

  1. NASA, "Moon to Mars | NASA's Artemis Program" https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/artemis/ (Read through a page-summarizing tool, not word for word. Source for the program's goals, the Artemis I to V descriptions and years, and the 252,756-mile record.)
  2. NASA, Apollo 17 mission page https://www.nasa.gov/missions/apollo/apollo-17/ (Read through a summarizing tool. Source for the crew, Schmitt as a geologist and first scientist on the Moon, and more than 73 hours on the surface. The page did not give the sample weight or the landing date, so we left them out.)
  3. NASA, "NASA Unveils Initiatives to Achieve America's National Space Policy," March 24, 2026 https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-unveils-initiatives-to-achieve-americas-national-space-policy/ (Read through a summarizing tool. Source for Artemis III as a 2027 Earth-orbit test, Artemis IV as the landing, the Gateway pause, and the three Moon Base phases.)
  4. NASA, "Artemis II: NASA's First Crewed Lunar Flyby in 50 Years" https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/ (Read through a summarizing tool. Source for the crew, launch date, and mission length. The page did not state distance records or the splashdown place.)
  5. Wikipedia, "Artemis II" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_II (Only the first part of a very long page was read. It is the sole source here for the Apollo 13 record figure, the 4,067-mile closest approach, the splashdown place, and the name Integrity, so those are written as reported, not as confirmed facts.)