Artemis 3 is the third scheduled flight of the Artemis program.
The mission aims to put humans on the Moon by 2025, assuming previous Artemis program missions go according to plan.
Like the unmanned Artemis 1 and manned Artemis 2, this mission aims to launch the gigantic Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft. To land on the moon, the crew will use SpaceX’s spacecraft, a system the California company is currently developing for manned human missions.
Staff Writer, Space Flight
Elizabeth Howell, Ph.D., has been a staff writer for the Space Flight Channel since 2022. She has been a contributing writer for Space.com (opens in a new tab) for 10 years prior to that, since 2012. Elizabeth’s on-site reports include two humans. spaceflight launches from Kazakhstan, three space shuttle missions in Florida, and integrated reporting from a simulated mission to Mars in Utah.
The crew of Artemis 3 has not yet been named and the 2025 launch date is quite tentative. NASA is awaiting results from both Artemis 1 and Artemis 2 before giving the go-ahead for Artemis 3. In addition, the agency will require significant progress in spacesuits and the human landing system for landing on the moon continues
Related: NASA’s Artemis 1 Moon Mission Explained in Photos
Artemis 3 release date
The Artemis 3 release date is set for 2025 for now, after an initial target of 2024.
NASA’s preparation for Artemis 3 depends on three key things: the success of previous missions, the development of new spacesuits, and the availability of an unmanned human landing system, or HLS (SpaceX’s Starship).
Artemis 1, scheduled to fly in 2022, will assess the readiness of SLS and Orion to carry humans. The main goals of Artemis 2, due in 2024, if all goes well with the predecessor mission, will be to fly four humans into lunar orbit and back. Artemis 2 will last a minimum of eight days (but could extend to three weeks).
Beyond evaluating data collected from Artemis 1 and 2, NASA will also need to make sure its spacesuits are ready. The spacesuits were initially developed by the agency, but opted to turn to commercial suppliers after NASA’s Office of Inspector General warned that agency-made spacesuits were causing undue delay .
The last element will be the preparation of SpaceX’s Starship system. Starship has only completed a few air tests and has yet to fly an orbital mission. SpaceX hopes to fly the orbital mission in 2022. Preparing Starship for the moon was also delayed by a complaint (and subsequent lawsuit) from Blue Origin, a competitor to NASA’s HLS contract. The lawsuit is settled, but it delayed the execution of the HLS contract by several months.
Who will fly Artemis 3?
The Artemis 3 crew has not yet been publicly named. NASA has said the crew will include four astronauts.
NASA astronauts will be at least part of the crew. The agency has pledged that the landing crew will include the first woman and the first person of color on the moon (since all the Apollo human landing missions of the 1960s and 1970s had white men on board). In 2022, NASA opened eligibility for Artemis. missions throughout the astronaut corps.
It is not clear which other agencies may be invited on the trip. Artemis is an international program and a coalition of dozens of agencies is being formed under the Artemis agreements, which are led by NASA.
The Americans have promised Japan a seat on a future moon mission and possibly a seat on a landing mission. Japan and the United States reached the pact as part of a broader set of agreements on cybersecurity, 5G cellular networks and other science and technology collaborations, the White House said at the time.
The European Space Agency is also a major contributor to the Artemis arrangements, contributing a European Service Module to NASA’s Orion spacecraft as well as several elements to the Gateway space station. A less likely selection would be Canada, as the country already has an astronaut assigned to Artemis 2 thanks to the country’s Canadarm3 robotic technology contributions to Gateway.
What will Artemis 3 do?
Artemis 3 will follow a similar mission profile to Artemis 2, including a launch from Kennedy Space Center, a translunar injection to take astronauts to the Moon, an orbiting mission, and a return to Earth for an ocean splash peaceful
The new primary mission objective beyond Artemis 2 will be to place two humans at the Moon’s south pole, in an area rich in water ice called Artemis Base Camp. (The other two astronauts would remain aboard Orion, in lunar orbit, and the landing zone is still undecided.)
Observations by numerous missions seem to confirm a large amount of water beneath the moon’s surface, especially in permanently shadowed craters that do not receive sunlight. These craters may include deposits rich in hydrogen and water ice beneath the top three feet (one meter) of lunar regolith. Water is a necessity not only for human needs, but also for machinery and for growing plants on the surface.
High-resolution maps from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter provide a wealth of information about the water there, although researchers have said there is uncertainty about how pure the water is and where it is exactly Also, turning water into fuel is still being explored (a CubeSat selected to fly with Artemis 1 is investigating water electrolysis, as a unique example).
NASA is exploring several areas of the South Pole in the coming years through a series of commercial Lunar Payload Service missions that will place landers, rovers and scientific payloads on the surface. Canada may also send a robotic rover to the Moon as early as 2026. CLPS missions and robotic exploration in the 2020s can help scientists and engineers learn how much water is available to humans.
Beyond learning about lunar water and science experiments, NASA expects the landing crew to spend 6.5 days on the lunar surface, which is nearly twice as long as the astronauts on the Apollo during its longest missions. They will do four lunar walks or extravehicular activities lasting about six hours, similar to what is done on the International Space Station. The agency expects the astronauts to use their feet to maneuver since they don’t have a rover on the manifest.
What comes after Artemis 3?
Planning ahead of Artemis 3 is very uncertain given that the mission is relatively far from us, but NASA has initial planning for the late 2020s. The timing of these missions is highly dependent on how much money the agency receives from Congress, along with the technical progress of the Artemis program.
The agency’s “Moon to Mars Planning Manifesto” released with its 2023 budget request suggests Artemis 4 will launch in 2027 to help build Gateway. Then, the next human landing on the Moon would be Artemis 5 in 2028. The next three landings of Artemis 6 through 8 will occur in 2029, 2030, and 2031.
NASA has been eyeing Artemis as an opportunity to build future missions to Mars, but has not yet decided exactly when. In early 2022, the agency said the goal was to focus on annual moon landings before targeting the red planet in more planning detail.
Additional resources
You can read more about the Artemis program at NASA’s Artemis website (opens in a new tab). If you want to see the different stages of Artemis 3, check out this image from the European Space Agency (opens in a new tab).
Bibliography
European Space Agency. (2020). Artemis 3 Step by step. (opens in a new tab)
NASA. (nd) Artemis. (opens in a new tab)
NASA. (2020). NASA’s Plan for Sustained Lunar Exploration and Development. (opens in a new tab)
NASA. (2022.) Budget request for fiscal year 23. (opens in a new tab)
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