Plus: The unprecedented coordination Golden Dome demands
| By Dan Robitzski
NASA's Artemis moon missions look a lot different than they did this time last week. After rolling back the Artemis 2 Space Launch System from the launch pad on Feb. 25 and announcing a new mission altogether, there are new expectations for the next few weeks — and next few years — of the program.
Let's tackle Artemis 2 first.
What's going on: After conducting what were billed as final checks and preparations for the Artemis 2 launch last month, NASA has brought the spacecraft back into the Vehicle Assembly Building so it could make repairs to the interior of the upper stage, Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said at a Feb. 27 briefing. The agency's technical workers had just about three weeks to diagnose and fix any issues in time for the next launch window. As of March 3, NASA announced that it found and fixed the helium flow issue that prompted the latest mission delay.
What to look out for: NASA's next shot to launch the Artemis 2 lunar flyby opens April 1 and lasts through April 6. Whether that launch window is a feasible target will become clear in the coming days and weeks as NASA continues diagnostics and testing. According to Glaze, if the SLS isn't brought back out to the launch pad "at least a week and a half or so" before the launch date, NASA won't have time to redo its final tests and checks. That means a final decision on whether or not to delay the mission further will likely come through the week of March 23.
Now, looking beyond Artemis 2, NASA has made significant changes to the rest of the Artemis program.
A brand new Artemis 3
What's going on: Yes, "Artemis 3" is a drastically different mission than it was as recently as last week. No longer a crewed lunar landing, Artemis 3 now refers to a newly announced mission where an Orion spacecraft will rendezvous and dock with lunar landers from Blue Origin, SpaceX or both while in low Earth orbit. NASA has also cancelled planned upgrades to the SLS in an attempt to minimize the amount of technological development and "firsts" in between each Artemis mission. The crewed lunar landing previously known as Artemis 3 is still on the docket, but will now either take place during Artemis 4 or Artemis 5.
What to look out for: So far, NASA has shared few technical details about the Artemis 3 mission, or the revised technical specs of future SLS spacecraft — including what company will manufacture its upcoming stage for future missions. Given that the Artemis program is known for wildly shifting timelines, it's safe to assume that this restructuring of the overall mission plan will have downstream changes for each mission's launch windows as well.
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| $118M | | The amount (100 million euros) that the European Space Agency said it's willing to provide in funding for projects promising to accelerate the convergence of satellite and terrestrial communications.
| | | | | | | GOLDEN DOME'S INTEROPERABILITY CHALLENGE
| | Military leaders recently shared how they've been involved in shaping the Golden Dome requirements — and how the Golden Dome office is tackling the challenge of coordinating across multiple systems of layers to ensure that those technologies are interoperable. Speaking Feb. 24 at the Air & Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colorado, the leaders of three combatant commands (Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of United States Space Command; Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of United States Northern Command; and Lt. Gen. Michael Lutton, U.S. Strategic Command) described close collaboration with Gen. Michael Guetlein, the Golden Dome program manager.
The SpaceNews story on the panel, by senior staff writer Sandra Erwin (and our most-read story in recent months), describes how military leadership is dividing responsibilities across combatant commands, with a focus on interoperability along the way
For example, as Sandra wrote, "The envisioned architecture includes a substantial space layer, potentially involving hundreds or thousands of satellites for sensing, tracking and interceptor coordination. As the combatant command responsible for military operations in the space domain, Space Command would be expected to help integrate those space-based assets into joint fire-control networks and protect them from interference."
| | | | | | | FROM SPACENEWS |  | | The Satcom Issue – Out Now: In the March 2026 issue of SpaceNews magazine, Jason Rainbow details how Blue Origin's surprise constellation has jolted the LEO broadband race, Sandra Erwin reports that the Space Force is rethinking its satellite ground station strategy and Debra Werner explores how massive comms constellations may impede weather observations. Subscribe today to download this latest issue and get access to all our reporting and analysis. | | | | | | | | | At a March 2 Pentagon news conference on military strikes against Iran, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described a coordinated campaign that involved space and cyber forces operating as the "first mover."
| | | | NASA astronaut Mike Fincke said he was the crew member whose medical issue prompted the early return of the Crew-11 mission from the International Space Station last month.
| | | | | India's space agency says a valve failure prevented a navigation spacecraft launched more than a year ago from raising its orbit.
| | | | One of the U.S. Space Force's most sensitive missions — tracking foreign satellites and predicting whether they could threaten American spacecraft — is increasingly drawing on commercial data and artificial intelligence.
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