Artemis Moon Program

Philip Sloss has another update video out mainly concerning Artemis II and III:


This week, I look at several Artemis updates, mostly about Artemis II. The preflight briefings will preview the mission next week, and NASA posted new pictures of launch processing milestones and new information about updates to the Artemis II SLS.​
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Updates about Artemis III and IV came from outside NASA; the European Space Agency marked the formal handover of the Orion European Service Module for Artemis III and Busek posted a press release that it had delivered all four of its solar electric propulsion thrusters for the Gateway Power and Propulsion Element.​
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Normally that would be a milestone that NASA would report, but Gateway is exiled from public updates by the White House because they had marked the program for death. Those NASA political games are also currently being played in Washington. The latest budget chicken deadline is October 1; we'll see if a stop-gap continuing resolution is passed by then.​
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Imagery is courtesy of NASA, except where noted.
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Artemis II Preflight Briefings planned next week:
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Artemis II Mission Overview News Conference (Sept. 23, 2025)

• Artemis II Mission Overview News Conferenc... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFvHUa4_VOU
Artemis II Science News Conference (Sept. 23, 2025)

• Artemis II Science News Conference (Sept. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH9BiTu4bAY
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Artemis II Crew News Conference (Sept. 24, 2025)
View: https://www.youtube.com/live/9mq_lb_SmKE
https://www.youtube.com/live/9mq_lb_SmKE
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Links to stories referenced:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/09...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...-news-use-house-funding-levels/&v=B7RRhlOTlrw
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Links to social media posts:

/ 1967875932544479529 https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ight/status/1967875932544479529&v=B7RRhlOTlrw
https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...://buymeacoffee.com/philipsloss&v=B7RRhlOTlrw
00:00 Intro
00:43 Artemis II watch this week
03:38 First Artemis II joint integrated simulation
06:36 Artemis II preflight briefings coming up
08:38 Orion ESM-3 formally handed over to NASA; Artemis III Service Module IPO complete
11:23 Busek delivers their set of SEP thrusters for the Gateway PPE module
12:54 NASA catches up Core Stage-3 LOX imagery with footage of late August milestones
17:37 Blue Origin awarded contract for Mark 1 lander to delivery VIPER to the Moon in late 2027
19:05 Political news and notes
21:14 Thanks for watching!
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_HLS
en.wikipedia.org

Blue Moon (spacecraft) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Let's compare a bit both architectures.

Starship-HLS use methalox which is easier to handle during refuelings, but the vehicle is of enormous size and will take a large numbers of refueling flights.

Blue Moon Mk.2 is of a more reasonable size but it takes multiple vehicles running on hydrolox - LH2 being a massive bitch to store and transfer.

China may return first since their lander is much smaller and use storables BUT (let's pay justice to NASA, SpaceX and Blue Origin here) once the three gets their architecture running, they will deliver colossal amounts of cargo to the lunar surface, on top of crews.

Of course if a Mars Starship skip the whole Artemis elements and goes straight to the Moon, performance will be even better than the SLS-Orion-Gateway compromised Starship-HLS.

So it's kind of "four different architectures to the lunar surface".
 
Archibald said:
Of course if a Mars Starship skip the whole Artemis elements and goes straight to the Moon, performance will be even better than the SLS-Orion-Gateway compromised Starship-HLS.
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Not much, direct descent then direct ascent to earth orbit only saves about 260 m/s of delta v vs the artemis profile, this is probably about 10-20% surface payload increase
You still need a capsule docking system and the separate landing/takeoff engines since the Raptors are overpowered for the moon, HLS is already "optimised for the moon" as much as a Starship-derived architecture can be
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Anyway probably a notable finding:
https://spacenews.com/nasa-safety-panel-warns-starship-lunar-lander-could-be-delayed-by-years/
NASA safety advisers say they doubt the lunar lander version of SpaceX’s Starship will be ready to support the Artemis 3 mission as planned in 2027.

At a Sept. 19 public meeting, members of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel said they believed the Human Landing System, or HLS, version of Starship could be “years late.”

That conclusion, panelist Paul Hill said, followed a visit last month to SpaceX’s Starbase facility and meetings with company executives. Hill attended with fellow panelists and former astronauts Charlie Precourt and Kent Rominger.

“The HLS schedule is significantly challenged and, in our estimation, could be years late for a 2027 Artemis 3 moon landing,” Hill said.

A major issue, he said, is demonstrating cryogenic propellant transfer, needed to refuel Starship in low Earth orbit before heading to the moon. That work has been slowed by delays in version 3 of Starship — the first capable of such transfers — and by ongoing improvements to the version 3 Raptor engine.

Hill did not detail the problems or their impact. But SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, speaking Sept. 16 at World Space Business Week, said propellant transfer worried her more than docking Starships in orbit. “Hopefully it’s not as hard as some of my engineers think it could be,” she said.

Despite concerns about schedule delays, panel members praised SpaceX’s accomplishments. Hill cited Falcon 9’s rapid launch tempo, driven largely by Starlink, as creating “unprecedented experience in spacecraft and booster manufacturing, launch preparation and flight operations.” The panel has previously warned of safety risks for programs with low flight rates, such as the Space Launch System and Orion.
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There have been a lot of criticism about HLS lately, but it's a bit hard to tell how much of it is due to the political or budget context, or even opportunism at a weak point in the Starship program, but this is the ASAP going at Starbase and concluding there may be years of additional delays...
 
In the past, Constellation was killed and SLS saved.

Here, after a few flights, SLS may end but Constellation return after a fashion...in mini-Starship moving a tad towards Altair size.
 
TheKutKu said:
There have been a lot of criticism about HLS lately, but it's a bit hard to tell how much of it is due to the political or budget context, or even opportunism at a weak point in the Starship program,
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That’s how a lot of it comes off as. Not reasoned principles, but opportunism. There’s reasonable criticism to be made, but so often people don’t make it.
 
Manned spacecraft? If I remember correctly, Apollo 10 through 17 all went round the moon.
With Apollo 13 the only one of those to only loop around the moon, the other seven Command Modules all entering lunar orbit.

Unmanned spacecraft from the Soviet Union, China, India have orbited the moon as well, after Apollo 17's mission.
 
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Proposing cuts to an agency’s budget, especially in an era of growing deficits, doesn’t mean someone lacks integrity. I would argue anyone assuming it’s a jab at Trump’s administration is letting their own feelings towards the president, and their lack of knowledge about the value most of the country has for the agency (the steady state of roughly 50% support regardless of what NASA does should tell you that the agency is a nice-to-have but not taken very seriously), color how they view the matter. Artemis does very little towards benefiting the average American, and the same is true with most of NASA’s science programs. Combine that with abysmal productivity, and you have a recipe for budget cuts (assuming they aren’t, as they were here, contested by self-interested members of Congress).

Something I wish more space enthusiasts would ask themselves is: “If I want to persuade people to vote for billions of taxpayer dollars to be spent on my interests, how do I do so effectively? Can I show that it benefits non-enthusiasts and the nation as a whole? Can I defend it for reasons aside from ideology and prestige?” All too often I see enormous entitlement to other people’s money, and derision towards differing values.
 
BlueAbyssal said:
Proposing cuts to an agency’s budget, especially in an era of growing deficits, doesn’t mean someone lacks integrity. I would argue anyone assuming it’s a jab at Trump’s administration is letting their own feelings towards the president, and their lack of knowledge about the value most of the country has for the agency (the steady state of roughly 50% support regardless of what NASA does should tell you that the agency is a nice-to-have but not taken very seriously), color how they view the matter. Artemis does very little towards benefiting the average American, and the same is true with most of NASA’s science programs. Combine that with abysmal productivity, and you have a recipe for budget cuts (assuming they aren’t, as they were here, contested by self-interested members of Congress).

Something I wish more space enthusiasts would ask themselves is: “If I want to persuade people to vote for billions of taxpayer dollars to be spent on my interests, how do I do so effectively? Can I show that it benefits non-enthusiasts and the nation as a whole? Can I defend it for reasons aside from ideology and prestige?” All too often I see enormous entitlement to other people’s money, and derision towards differing values.
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As much as I'm doubtful/skeptic, I'm rooting for Musk to take humanity back to the Moon, onwards to Mars, and then the beginning of infinity...
 
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martinbayer said:
As much as I'm doubtful/skeptic, I'm rooting for Musk to take humanity back to the Moon, onwards to Mars, and then the beginning of infinity...
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I agree. I would also like to see many other companies operating out there, along with universities, and eventually, families or individuals. I’m also fine with the government playing a significant, if proscribed, role (e.g. providing law enforcement, a reasonable regulatory environment, etc.). I think the people who are worried about Musk dominating everything are ignoring that success breeds imitators, and that success is never permanent. Look at the trouble Boeing has nowadays. If Artemis ends up being used as a foundation to expand the involvement of the private half of the country, rather than public, that will be an excellent end, just because there’s so little justification for a massive government program.
Forest Green said:
Deficit actually appears to be going down and spending is increasing according to this:

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I was speaking more of the time when the cuts were proposed, but yes, there have been some changes in the interim. And NASA wasn’t the only agency to have a budget reduction planned.
 
Philip Sloss has a new status report out concerning the upcoming Artemis II mission and concern for the Starship HLS:


NASA started providing a detailed preview of the Artemis II lunar flyby test flight this past week during a media event at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Overviews of the mission, the science, and the technology were livestreamed and the Artemis II flight crew named their Orion spacecraft Integrity during their news conference.​
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I'll provide my first overview of the overviews here. For those who like digging for details, we were given the rare opportunity to interact with the people who will conduct the mission and the people who are training them. A deep dive will have to wait until I have more time to unpack all the information, but in this video I'll summarize what I saw in Houston. One of the signs in Houston this past week said "20 weeks to launch," so it sounds like they are still targeting February.​
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Exploration Ground Systems is continuing to prepare the Artemis II flight hardware for launch and launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson also gave us a preview of the countdown.​
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Going back a week, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel reported on a recent field trip to Starbase, and similar concerns about the Starship HLS schedule. Congress is the one pushing a race with China to land the next astronauts on the Moon, and they have voiced similar concerns about HLS, but so far nobody has talked about doing anything about it.​
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Imagery is courtesy of NASA, except where noted.
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Links to social media posts:https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/1970...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...pace/status/1970624951930757301&v=SOHb1We_Gxk
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Links to stories referenced:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/09...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...artemis-ii-mission-to-the-moon/&v=SOHb1We_Gxk
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/na...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ficant-delays-for-starship-hls/&v=SOHb1We_Gxk
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https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...://buymeacoffee.com/philipsloss&v=SOHb1We_Gxk
00:00 Intro
00:58 Artemis II media event in Houston
03:30 The crew names the Artemis II Orion Integrity
05:45 Launch, mission overviews
08:47 20 weeks to launch?
11:10 Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson updates vehicle preparations
12:53 Artemis II Orion Stage Adapter moves to the VAB for stacking
14:07 Changes to the Artemis II launch countdown
17:34 JSC event provides a peek at Artemis II training in Houston
19:05 First look at people and places we visited at JSC
22:32 Other news and notes: ASAP has similar concerns about HLS schedule for Artemis III
24:56 Final thoughts: visiting Houston for Artemis is rare
26:00 Thanks for watching!
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Philip Sloss has put out a new lengthy quarterly update concerning Artemis II, III, and IV:


Another quarter ended, with the U.S. government commemorating it by shutting down. Or something like that. The quarter did end and the U.S. government did shut down, which means NASA activities are blacked out for the time being. While we wait for nothing in particular, I'll review the highlights of what we saw and heard about NASA's Artemis programs during the previous quarter, the third quarter of 2025.​
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NASA was under some kind of partial gag order about all the future Artemis activities that the White House wants to terminate, even if Congress is still going to pay for them. As Artemis II gets closer to launch, we're see more activities for a formerly public agency like NASA become secret, so that becomes more of a focus of attention when looking at Artemis III and IV in particular.​
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The administration is deflecting talk about Artemis III delays and concealing Artemis IV activities, so that's taking up more of the reporting than Starship technology demonstrations or Gateway thruster deliveries. It makes you wonder why, but that's the big secret, isn't it?​
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Imagery is courtesy of NASA, except where noted.
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Links to social media posts:
https://x.com/SpaceX/status/196116506...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...aceX/status/1961165064666312956&v=7nK6_3apqvg
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Links to stories referenced:
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/na...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ficant-delays-for-starship-hls/&v=7nK6_3apqvg
https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...://buymeacoffee.com/philipsloss&v=7nK6_3apqvg
00:00 Intro
01:07 Artemis II status
03:08 Artemis III status
20:05 Artemis IV status
34:36 Thanks for watching!
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Philip Sloss has a new update on the Gateway PPE, Blue Moon alternative to Starship for Artemis III and Artemis II:


While we wait for the U.S. government shutdown to be resolved, I got an update from the Gateway's Power and Propulsion Element prime contractor, Lanteris Space Systems, on assembly and test. I'll also go through the latest on concerns about Starship HLS readiness, including internal studies about a backup option for Artemis III, and what another study about making Orion a commercial service says about the future of Artemis.​
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In this video, I'll look at what we know about Artemis II preparations while the work continues in a shutdown-induced news blackout and some pictures from the recent tour of the L3Harris RS-25 engine production plant.​
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Imagery is courtesy of NASA, except where noted.
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Links to stories referenced:
https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/loc...
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/na...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ficant-delays-for-starship-hls/&v=Yuvkj0SRkO0
https://spacenews.com/private-mission...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...rd-offering-orion-as-a-service/&v=Yuvkj0SRkO0
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/10...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ic-first-hours-of-their-flight/&v=Yuvkj0SRkO0
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/10...

00:00 Intro
00:53 Artemis work continues during U.S. government shutdown, but news and updates are blacked out
03:25 An update on PPE assembly and test from prime contractor Lanteris Space Systems
05:00 Artemis II Watch
08:22 Blue Moon alternative to Starship for Artemis III?
13:02 Lockheed Martin looking for an SLS off-ramp for Orion?
17:58 L3Harris pictures from recent RS-25 plant tour
21:04 Thanks for watching!
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Philip Sloss has released a new video about updates on Artemis II's scientific objectives:


This video includes part of a presentation from the Artemis II lunar science team during the media briefings at the Johnson Space Center in Houston in September. They talk about plans for the crew to make observations of the Moon during the closest approach in Orion during the mission, how the team on the ground will support those observations by the astronauts, and how everyone is training to get ready.​
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Imagery is courtesy of NASA, except where noted.
https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...://buymeacoffee.com/philipsloss&v=Hzapw-Hv4W8
00:00 Intro
01:41 Dr. Kelsey Young talks about Artemis II lunar science, themes and objectives
14:20 Dr. Juliane Gross talks about how the illumination of the Moon varies and how it will affect the observation plan
20:16 Dr. Marie Henderson talks about what the Artemis II will be doing onboard Orion on flyby day
23:34 Thanks for watching!
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If only they'd started work on that half a decade ago. It's a start, and it only delays the inevitable, but it's better than being permanently tied to the SLS.
 
Better still, they should have kept Apollo capsules all along instead of replacing them with a tiled monstrosity that never did live up to it's promises of rapid reuse. America would never fall for that again, right?
 
So basically, there are a lot of non-engineers in DC who think that NASA can build a solution with LEGOS.

Eric Berger@SciGuySpace
·

This cryptic tweet referred to a lot of crappy things I heard yesterday in the space industry. One of them is this: There is a concerted lobbying effort in DC saying industry can build a LM-like lunar lander in two years, and it should be a second option for Artemis III.
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1978882785583493349
View: https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1978882785583493349
 
ALPACA was to be LV agnostic.
Not exactly LEGO either. That was Titan III & IV.

The Angry Rabbit never tried to cosplay as Salvage I.

That's Starship :)
 
Adding a much-needed source for this thread and deleting the request for them below so that this thread can begin more professionally. Tony
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arstechnica.com

How America fell behind China in the lunar space race—and how it can catch back up

Thanks to some recent reporting, we’ve found a potential solution to the Artemis blues.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com


Here comes the important part. Ars can now report, based on government sources, that Blue Origin has begun preliminary work on a modified version of the Mark 1 lander—leveraging learnings from Mark 2 crew development—that could be part of an architecture to land humans on the Moon this decade. NASA has not formally requested Blue Origin to work on this technology, but according to a space agency official, the company recognizes the urgency of the need.

How would it work? Blue Origin is still architecting the mission, but it would involve "multiple" Mark 1 landers to carry crew down to the lunar surface and then ascend back up to lunar orbit to rendezvous with the Orion spacecraft. Enough work has been done, according to the official, that Blue Origin engineers are confident the approach could work. Critically, it would not require any refueling.
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How would it work? Blue Origin is still architecting the mission, but it would involve "multiple" Mark 1 landers to carry crew down to the lunar surface and then ascend back up to lunar orbit to rendezvous with the Orion spacecraft. Enough work has been done, according to the official, that Blue Origin engineers are confident the approach could work. Critically, it would not require any refueling.
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So - lunar surface RDV ? Like the old movie Countdown, adapted from Hank Searls The pilgrim project.
Where China... USSR gets a headstart against Artemis... Apollo so desperate measures are taken.
en.wikipedia.org

Countdown (1967 film) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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Philip Sloss has a new video out concerning the status of Artemis II and Starship:


NASA and Artemis are targeting the Moon, and even in an updates blackout, local Kennedy Space Center media caught the Artemis II Orion spacecraft headed to the Vehicle Assembly Building late this week. Next is stacking on SLS for launch. Starship flight test 11 was bigger mainstream news, but from an Artemis standpoint, it's getting harder to tell how big the Moon is in SpaceX's plans for 2026. These days, we're seeing more updates from Blue Origin about technology development of their lunar transportation and lunar landing systems. SpaceX seems to be all about Mars now.​
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The news blackout is still in effect; last time an Orion moved to the VAB, NASA provided live updates on social media, lots of pictures, and livestreaming, but this time public relations/communications is one of many teams furloughed by the ongoing government shutdown. Under the political circumstances, it's hard not to wonder how much we would see of the Artemis II mission if the shutdown and the blackout were to stretch out to next year.​
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Imagery is courtesy of NASA, except where noted.
Space Coast Live (http://nsf.live/spacecoast) courtesy of NSF/NASASpaceflight, used with permission.
NSF/NASASpaceflight Starship Flight Test 11 livestream: • SpaceX Starship Flight 11 - LAUNCH STREAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bcpnn_PO-A
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Links to social media posts:
https://x.com/davill/status/197169733...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...vill/status/1971697335882469451&v=AUsjpyGjjO4
https://x.com/davill/status/197352701...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...vill/status/1973527019557363723&v=AUsjpyGjjO4
https://x.com/davill/status/197595900...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...vill/status/1975959000132038664&v=AUsjpyGjjO4
https://x.com/blueorigin/status/19766...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...igin/status/1976666017293074742&v=AUsjpyGjjO4
https://x.com/davill/status/197675745...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...vill/status/1976757458195693987&v=AUsjpyGjjO4
Links to stories referenced:
https://nasawatch.com/personnel-news/...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...sonnel-news/let-the-rifs-begin/&v=AUsjpyGjjO4
https://nasawatch.com/personnel-news/...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...-news/reactions-to-jpl-firings/&v=AUsjpyGjjO4
https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...://buymeacoffee.com/philipsloss&v=AUsjpyGjjO4
00:00 Intro
01:45 Artemis II Watch: Orion moved to the VAB for stacking
09:36 Starship flight test 11 complete...when will version 3 fly?
12:42 Blue Origin is providing some updates on their HLS development
15:41 Government shutdown continues, Artemis updates muted or blacked out altogether
17:12 Thanks for watching!
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