NASA is overhauling and accelerating Artemis, its program to send astronauts back to the moon, the head of the space agency announced on Friday.
The agency is revising missions and aiming to launch more often, more closely following the approach that NASA took in the 1960s for the Apollo program.
“No one at NASA forgot their history books,” Jared Isaacman, the NASA administrator, said during a news conference on Friday. “They knew how to do this. They’ve had plans like this for a long time. Now we’re putting it in action.”
Artemis III, which had been scheduled for late 2028, was supposed to land NASA astronauts on the surface of the moon for the first time in more than half a century. Now, it will launch in mid-2027 and not even travel to the moon. Instead, it is set to serve as another test flight during which astronauts will practice rendezvousing in low-earth orbit with one or both of the lunar landers that are under development by SpaceX and Blue Origin.
That would set up two landing attempts, Artemis IV and V, in 2028, which would meet President Trump’s goal of sending NASA astronauts back to the moon before the end of his second term.
What will not change is the plan for Artemis II, which is set to send four astronauts on a swing around the moon without landing. NASA, however, had to take Artemis II off the launchpad this week because of a problem with the upper stage of the Space Launch System rocket. It had to be rolled back to the giant hangar known as the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs, eliminating the possibility of a launch in March.
If repairs and other work can be completed in time, the next launch opportunities will run from April 1 through April 6.
Mr. Isaacman said the goal of the transformed Artemis schedule was to decrease the time between missions to less than one year. More than three years have passed since Artemis I, an uncrewed mission that circled the moon in 2022, and under the previous schedule, another almost three years would pass until Artemis III.
“Launching a rocket as important and as complex as S.L.S. every three years is not a path to success,” he said, referring to the Space Launch System rocket.
With more missions, Mr. Isaacman said the hope was that launch teams would have more experience and more opportunities to resolve recurring problems. That includes the hydrogen leaks and helium system malfunctions that have occurred during Artemis I and Artemis II. Diagnosing and fixing the problems caused monthslong delays to both missions.
The aim of the revised Artemis III mission is to reduce the many technical hurdles of attempting to safely land astronauts on the moon on the first try. A report by the NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel this week warned that the Artemis III plan was “high risk.”
Mr. Isaacman also said NASA would standardize the design of the Space Launch System rocket, which cancels planned upgrades.
“We want to reduce complexity to the greatest extent possible,” he said.
NASA officials declined to say whether the standardized design meant that the contract with Boeing for an upgraded second stage would be canceled.
“Everybody agrees this is the only way forward,” said Mr. Isaacman. He said he had discussions with the companies building the spacecraft and with members of Congress, and all were supportive of the new approach.
Mr. Isaacman said that launching moon missions more often would also increase support for the program.
“I do believe it helps keep the public engaged,” he said. “We want to see a lot more kids dressing up as astronauts on Halloween. Inspiring the next generation to take us a lot farther than the moon is part of the plan.”
Kenneth Chang, a science reporter at The Times, covers NASA and the solar system, and research closer to Earth.
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