Artemis IV

Artemis IV is planned to be the third crewed mission and first lunar landing of the NASA-led Artemis program, marking the first crewed landing on the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. It will be the first mission to use the standardized configuration of the Space Launch System (SLS), with a different upper stage in place of the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) flown on the previous SLS launches. The SLS will send an Orion spacecraft carrying the astronaut crew members to lunar orbit.

The mission depends on a prior support flight to place a lunar lander—either SpaceX's Starship HLS or Blue Origin's Blue Moon—into lunar orbit before the crew launch. When Orion docks with the lander the crew will transfer to it, descend to the lunar surface and conduct extravehicular activities (EVAs) there. They will then ascend back to the Orion waiting in lunar orbit, which will return the four astronauts to Earth. As of March 2026, launch is scheduled for early 2028.

Before February 2026, Artemis IV was proposed as the program's second lunar landing mission, sending an Orion with four astronauts to the Lunar Gateway space station, where they would install the I-Hab module, before heading down to the lunar surface.