The Artemis program is NASA's flagship initiative to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972 and establish a sustained presence on and around the Moon. The program uses the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the Orion crew capsule, and SpaceX's Starship Human Landing System (HLS), along with Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander as a second provider.
Artemis I completed an uncrewed lunar flyby in 2022, Artemis II is planned as the first crewed lunar flyby, and Artemis III aims to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon. The program also includes the Lunar Gateway space station in lunar orbit and a growing commercial ecosystem through CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) for robotic cargo delivery. Artemis serves as both a scientific exploration program and a testbed for technologies needed for eventual crewed Mars missions.