Artemis IV and Beyond: Building a Sustained Lunar Campaign
Following Artemis III's Earth-orbit demonstration mission, NASA currently targets Artemis IV for 2028 as the first Artemis crewed lunar landing.
Artemis IV: The First Planned Landing
Artemis IV is intended to carry astronauts toward the Moon aboard Orion, where the crew will transfer to a commercial Human Landing System for the trip between lunar orbit and the surface. Under NASA's current, 2026-revised architecture, this is the mission currently identified as the first actual Artemis lunar landing — a real shift from earlier plans, which had originally slotted that role to Artemis III. See Artemis III for why that changed.
The Lunar South Pole
Artemis IV's landing is associated with the lunar South Pole region, scientifically important because permanently shadowed craters there may hold water ice and other volatile materials. The South Pole's terrain, lighting, temperature, and communications conditions are also genuinely more challenging than Apollo's equatorial landing sites — exactly the kind of environment worth developing new technology for.
Gateway
Later Artemis missions will increasingly incorporate Gateway, NASA's planned lunar-orbit space station, intended as a staging point for lunar missions and a platform for scientific research, technology demonstrations, crew operations, and international participation — part of NASA's broader plan for sustained human exploration around the Moon rather than a series of one-off visits.
Artemis V and Later Missions
NASA's longer-term Artemis architecture calls for increasingly capable missions after the first landing — expanded scientific exploration, surface operations, infrastructure, resource utilization, and international and commercial participation. The exact sequence and hardware configuration will continue to evolve as NASA and its partners test systems and refine the architecture, exactly as it already has once, between the original and current Artemis III/IV plans.
From the Moon to Mars
The Moon offers a genuinely nearby environment where NASA can develop the technology and operational experience a Mars mission will eventually need: extended surface operations, resource utilization, habitation, communications, autonomous systems, spacesuit operations, and deep-space logistics. Artemis represents not simply a return to the Moon, but a real step toward that much larger exploration campaign.
Honest Uncertainty About the Later Missions
As this page's own history shows, Artemis's mission sequence has already changed once — Artemis III's role shifted from a landing to a demonstration mission during 2026. Details for Artemis V and beyond remain even less firmly defined, and are more likely to change further as the program progresses. For the current, authoritative plan, always check NASA's own Artemis program pages directly rather than treating any specific future date or mission detail as settled.