NASA to Discuss Artemis Acceleration, Status of Upcoming Moon Missions

What this means

A factual summary is pending editorial review. The complete official release is reproduced below with issuer attribution and a direct link to the original publication.

Official release

Source material from NASA. The wording below is the issuer’s statement.

As the Artemis II crew members came close to passing behind the Moon and experiencing a planned loss of signal, they captured this image of a crescent Earth setting on the Moon’s limb on April 6, 2026. The edge of the visible surface of the Moon is called the “lunar limb.”

Credit: NASA

NASA will provide an update on its plans to return American astronauts to the surface of the Moon by 2028 at 2 p.m. EDT, Friday, Oct. 23, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Learn where to watch online:

https://www.nasa.gov/live

Participants in the briefing include:

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman

NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya

Jeremy Parsons, NASA’s Artemis program manager

The update will include details about NASA’s Artemis III mission that will send four astronauts to low Earth orbit next year to test critical systems needed for future lunar landings, and how plans to return American astronauts to the Moon by 2028 are progressing.

U.S. media interested in attending in person must apply online by 12 p.m., Friday, Oct. 16. To ask questions remotely, media must request the dial-in number from the Kennedy newsroom no later than one hour prior to the start of the update by emailing: ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is online.

As part of a Golden Age of innovation and exploration, NASA will send Artemis astronauts on increasingly difficult missions near the lunar South Pole to explore more of the Moon than ever before. In addition to providing economic benefits and advancing scientific discovery through its Moon missions, NASA will establish an enduring human presence on the lunar surface and build on the agency’s foundation for the first crewed mission to Mars.

Learn more about Artemis:

https://www.nasa.gov/artemis

-end-

Rachel Kraft

Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1600

rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov

Tiffany Fairley

Kennedy Space Center, Fla.

321-867-2468

tiffany.l.fairley@nasa.gov

Release text attributed to NASA. Consult the official publication for any subsequent corrections or updates.