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NASA cancels Moon landing as part of Artemis III mission

According to NASA head Jared Isaacman, Artemis III will target launch in 2027 and it will no longer be a Moon landing

NEW YORK, February 27. /TASS/. The Artemis III lunar mission plan will not envisage a Moon landing, NASA head Jared Isaacman said.

According to Isaacman, Artemis III will target launch in 2027 and it will no longer be a Moon landing. Instead it will be a low Earth orbit demonstration of Orion with a rendezvous with one or both of the lunar lander providers, he said.

In his words, if this plan goes smoothly, this can set up Moon landing opportunities with Artemis IV in early 2028 and Artemis V in late 2028.

In the spring of 2019, NASA announced the Artemis lunar program project, consisting of three stages. The first of them (Artemis I) envisaged an unmanned flight of the Orion spacecraft around the Moon and its return to Earth. The flight took place from November 16 to December 11, 2022. The second stage (Artemis II) is a crewed flight around the Earth's natural satellite. In the third stage (Artemis III), NASA plans to land astronauts on the Moon and send them to Mars.

Initially Artemis II and Artemis III were planned for 2022 and 2024, respectively. However, those dates have been repeatedly pushed back. Last December NASA moved them to April 2026 and mid-2027.

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