NASA chief vows four Moon missions before Trump's term ends in ambitious 2028 timeline
EXCLUSIVE: NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman laid out the timeline for the Artemis Moon landing and discussed the current delay to the Artemis II mission during an exclusive interview with Fox...
By Fox News · Fox News
EXCLUSIVE: NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman laid out the timeline for the Artemis Moon landing and discussed the current delay to the Artemis II mission during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital. The agency announced Friday that Artemis III, Artemis IV and Artemis V will all be launched before the end of President Donald Trump ’s second term. Artemis IV and Artemis V will be missions where astronauts return to the surface of the Moon. "To be overwhelmingly clear, we did not stretch out our timeline or delay anything. What we did is insert additional missions, standardized, so we can actually achieve the national policy that President Trump set out to return American astronauts to the Moon, and build an enduring presence to stay," Isaacman told Fox News Digital. "Artemis II, we're going to launch in a matter of weeks [and] go around the moon," Isaacman explained. "Artemis III will launch by mid 2027 with the aim to buy down risk and low Earth orbit for subsequent [Moon] landing attempts in 2028." NASA AT A CROSSROADS: TRUMP’S PLAN TO REFOCUS, EXPLORE AND BEAT CHINA The Artemis program was initially established by President Donald Trump during his first term in December 2017. Isaacman is seeking to complete four Artemis missions under his tenure at the agency, while the Biden administration successfully completed just one non-manned test flight in 2022. The NASA administrator was critical of the Biden administration for the delay in launches, telling Fox News Digital "the previous administration didn't make any decisions over the last four years that need to be done." INSIDE NASA'S FAST-TRACK PLANS FOR LUNAR NUCLEAR POWER AND NEW SPACE STATIONS TO OUTPACE GLOBAL RIVALS "That's being corrected now," Isaacaman said. "You need to standardize, you need to launch with cadence. That's how you get back to the moon. That's how you stay. President Trump's 100% behind that." Artemis II was scheduled to launch in early February, though the Space Launch System (SLS) r…