Early planning
Upon the December 2017 ratification of the first Trump administration's Space Policy Directive 1, a crewed lunar campaign—later known as the Artemis program—using the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) and a space station in lunar orbit was established. Originally billed as Exploration Mission-3 (EM-3), the goal of the mission was to send four astronauts into a near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon and deliver the ESPRIT and U.S. Utilization Module to the now cancelled lunar space station, known as the Gateway.[22]
By May 2019, however, ESPRIT and the U.S. Utilization Module—renamed HALO—were re-manifested to fly separately on a commercial launch vehicle. ArtemisIII, as it was billed, was repurposed to accelerate the first crewed lunar landing of the Artemis program by the end of 2024, with a profile that would have seen the OrionMPCV rendezvous with a minimal Gateway space station made up of only the Power and Propulsion Element and a small habitat and docking node with an attached commercially procured lunar lander known as the Human Landing System (HLS).[23] By early 2020, plans for Orion and the HLS to rendezvous with the Gateway were abandoned in favor of direct docking of Orion and HLS, and delivery of the Gateway after ArtemisIII.[24][25]
Delays
On August 10, 2021, a U.S. government Office of Inspector General audit reported a conclusion that the spacesuits would not be ready until April 2025 at the earliest, likely delaying the mission from the planned late 2024 launch date.[26] Axiom Space will design the space suits, with collaboration from fashion house Prada.[27] On November 9, 2021, the Administrator of NASA, Bill Nelson, confirmed that Artemis III would launch no earlier than 2025.[28]
In June 2023, Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems development, said that launch would "probably" be no earlier than 2026.[29][30] Later in December 2023, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported the mission was unlikely to occur before 2027.
Development and funding
In March 2024, NASA announced the scientific instruments to be included on the mission were a compact, autonomous seismometer suite called the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station, or LEMS. LEMS will characterize the regional structure of the Moon's crust and mantle to inform the development of lunar formation and evolution models. Another instrument is Lunar Effects on Agricultural Flora, a.k.a. LEAF, which will investigate the impact of the lunar surface environment on space crops. The third instrument is the Lunar Dielectric Analyzer, or LDA, an internationally contributed payload that will measure the regolith's ability to propagate an electric field.[34]
On May 2, 2025, the second Trump administration released its fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, which proposed canceling the SLS and Orion spacecraft after Artemis III due to the former's cost of $4 billion per launch.[35] However, on July 4, 2025, President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law, which included provisions that allocated funding for continued development and operation of the SLS and Orion spacecraft beyond Artemis III.[36]
On August 18, 2025, NASA reported that it had begun processing the SLS core stage's completed bottom fifth (to which the engines will be attached) at the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building
Post-Artemis II landing
The Artemis III mission is slated for possible improvements from the design of the Artemis II, including the resolution of the helium leak in the Integrity 's propulsion system and an upgrade of the toilet system that malfunctioned during the mission.[40] NASA administrator Jared Isaacman stated that the Artemis III crew will be revealed in the near future for the next mission in the space program.[41]
On April 20, 2026, it has been confirmed that in Louisiana, crews will roll out much of the Artemis III Space Launch System rocket out of the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Parts of the rocket's core will be moved onto the NASA Pegasus barge, which will move to Kennedy Space Center, taking around six days.[42]
