WASHINGTON, July 13 — The technical reality of getting humans back to the Moon is a matter of engineering, budget cycles, and political will. As ever, the detail that matters is that NASA’s Artemis program, named after the Greek goddess of the Moon, is targeting a crewed lunar landing by 2025 — a timeline that, under the hood, depends on a cascade of test flights and international cooperation. The Apollo program, which ran from 1961 to 1972, remains the benchmark.
Six successful Moon landings — Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 — put twelve men on the lunar surface. Apollo 11, which launched on July 16, 1969, saw Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969, while Michael Collins orbited above.
The last human Moon landing was Apollo 17 in December 1972, with astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. The program cost approximately $25.4 billion, or about $200 billion in 2020 dollars.
Artemis: The Next Chapter
The Artemis program is structured in phases. Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, launched on November 16, 2022. That mission validated the heavy-lift vehicle and capsule.
Artemis II, a crewed lunar flyby, is planned for no earlier than November 2024. Artemis III, the crewed lunar landing mission, is targeted for 2025.
The program aims to return humans to the Moon, including the first woman and the next man. The program involves international partners — the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
What’s Under the Hood
The SLS rocket is central to the architecture. The Orion spacecraft is designed to carry astronauts beyond low Earth orbit. The lunar landing itself will involve a human landing system.
One aborted mission from the Apollo era — Apollo 13 — serves as a reminder of the risks. That mission did not land on the Moon; the crew returned safely after an in-flight explosion.
The Artemis program inherits that safety culture, though the hardware is entirely new. The detail that matters for the coming years is the schedule. Artemis II has slipped before.
Artemis III, as of now, is targeted for 2025. Whether that date holds depends on the performance of the SLS, the Orion capsule, and the landing system — and on the funding Congress provides.
The Apollo program ended with Apollo 17 in December 1972. No human has set foot on the Moon since. Artemis aims to change that.
The next steps are a crewed flyby, then a landing. The technical reality is that the path is mapped, but the journey is not yet complete.
