Artemis Program

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NASA's programme to return crews to the Moon and establish sustained lunar operations, directed by Space Policy Directive 1 in December 2017 and named Artemis in 2019. It differs from Apollo in three structural ways: it targets the lunar south pole rather than the equatorial near side, because of water ice and near-continuous sunlight there; it depends on commercially developed and partly reusable landers rather than a single government-built stack; and it is explicitly international, with ESA, JAXA and CSA supplying flight hardware and the Artemis Accords opened for signature in October 2020. Core elements are the Space Launch System, Orion, the commercial Human Landing Systems and exploration ground systems. The programme was substantially restructured on 27 February 2026, moving the first crewed landing from Artemis III to Artemis IV and pivoting from an orbital outpost toward surface infrastructure.

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