Artemis: NASA’s Program to Return Humans to the Moon

Between 1969 and 1972, the Apollo program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) landed 12 American men on the Moon and returned them safely to Earth. Since then, no human has been farther from Earth than low-Earth orbit, a few hundred miles up; the distance to the Moon is about 240,000 miles.

Artemis, named for Apollo’s twin sister in ancient Greek mythology, is NASA’s program for a return to the Moon by American astronauts—one of them a woman—in 2026.