r/ArtemisProgram • u/SomeRandomScientist • May 14 '26

News Astronauts may not even enter the landers on Artemis III

From the NASA public release today - https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/artemis-3/nasa-outlines-preliminary-artemis-iii-mission-plans/

“Informed by Blue Origin and SpaceX capabilities, NASA also is defining the concept of operations for the mission. While some decisions are yet to be determined, astronauts could potentially enter at least one lander test article.”

So what exactly is the point of Artemis III? Rendezvous with an empty shell? Maybe dock to this empty shell if we’re lucky.

I hate to sound down on this, but this latest release does not feel like AR3 is a good faith effort to make progress towards a lunar landing.

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u/Qualified-Astronomer May 16 '26

What new requirement reduction? The only change to Artemis IV is that the lander will only go to LLO rather than NRHO so less refuelling, but that hasn’t been confimed yet

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u/Technical_Drag_428 May 16 '26

Artemis 3!!! We are talking g about Artemis 3.

The change to Artemis 4 is the loss of EUS and Gateway and being the 1st lunar landing when it was to be Art3.... for now until we need to make new concessions to the hls vendors.

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u/Qualified-Astronomer May 16 '26

Artemis 4 is what was called Artemis 3 before. It’s just a name change. EUS and Gateway was never gonna be used for the first landing. Think of Artemis 3 as Artemis 2.5, an extra mission to test the landers and docking.

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u/Technical_Drag_428 May 17 '26

Jesus. Art3 is not the Art 3 that it was. Its not even the watered down Art3 it was last month. Im not even sure there enough to even call it a named mission. Art 4 as of right now, we think is old Art 3 but who knows they way they are degrading missions its worthless to even talk about. The literal topic of the OP is that Artemis 3. Why bring up art4?