WAstronauts will fly around the Moon for the first time in history more than half a century When Artemis 2 makes its long-awaited liftoff sometime this spring, 2026 was already destined to be a remarkable year in space.
This will also probably be one of the most important because new NASA leadership in private billionaire astronaut Jared Isaacman and in the tycoon-led private space industry that is taking on more than just a supporting role to help the US succeed. race with China back to the lunar surface.
Combined with Donald Trump pre-holiday directive As for “American space supremacy,” which includes planting the Stars and Stripes on the Moon before the end of his second term, it marks the start of potentially the most significant period in human spaceflight in more than a generation.
“The past year has really been kind of a defining, at least turning point, moment for the Artemis program, putting it firmly in the forefront and clearly framing it as a race against China,” said Casey Dreyer, director of space policy at the Planetary Society.
“Now it's about execution, and I think we'll see if Jared Isaacman can take a certain different approach and really see results quickly.”
The December confirmation of Isaacman, a friend and ally of SpaceX chief Elon Musk, as the next administrator of the US space agency was almost the final touch to the Trump administration's long-stated policy of landing Americans on the moon before China, which hopes to get there in 2030 through its Chang'e project.
After Confusing nomination process which began over a year ago, Isaacman quickly received a message in send a message to X last week said, “Our number one priority: American leadership in space.”
As Artemis 2 approaches the launch pad for a mission scheduled anytime between February and April, and Artemis 3, which will carry an as-yet-unnamed crew of four, including the first woman and the first person of color, for a lunar landing planned for mid-2027, the US program looks to be in better shape than it was a year ago.
Then the future of NASA Space launch system over budget and years delayed (SLS) for the Artemis 2 and Artemis 3 missions was in immediate doubt, which could potentially push the project back several years if NASA abandoned it in favor of Musk's rocket. greatly improved Starship heavy transport ship for further lunar adventures and trips to Mars.
Experts believe it's still likely, but perhaps not until Trump's moment of planting a flag on the moon arrives. Isaacman, at his initial Senate nomination hearing in April, appeared to agree.
“I believe that SLS and the current Artemis architecture represent the fastest way to return American astronauts to the Moon. But in the long term, it is not a sustainable or affordable solution,” he told senators.
Dreyer, meanwhile, said the success of NASA's first manned missions to the Moon since the last Apollo landing in 1972 is far from certain. He also pointed to a year of upheaval at NASA that included a massive job cuts, Budget for killing science at the level of “extinction” a Trump administration proposal that was ultimately rejected by Congress, and the recurring saga of Isaacman's confirmation.
“You've just seen a significant amount of disruption that was imposed non-strategically, probably by accident, and is sort of a consequence of various other forces within the administration, such as the Doge. [Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”]and the Office of Management and Budget through the budget reduction process,” he said.
“This ended up creating a lot of friction, chaos and waste NASA an experience without any positive or redirected focus. You had a situation where they kind of wasted a year, and now Isaacman has at most three years and maybe one year before a relatively politically hostile opposition party takes over at least the House of Representatives, and maybe even the Senate.
“They wasted a lot of time imposing any coherent strategy. They simply lost that year.”
Other space experts welcomed Isaacman's confirmation as an opportunity to clarify some areas in which NASA has awarded contracts or partnered with private operators, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's recently ascendant space company.
“Space policy overall is in good shape, so the real work is on implementation, with issues of project management, funding and systems integration,” said Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and executive secretary of the National Space Council during Trump’s first term.
“I expect that in the near future he will take a close look at the Artemis 2 mission and the decisions needed for safe flight. However, I am hopeful that we will see clearer paths forward on several issues.”
Pace listed a number of initiatives: phasing out SLS and purchasing commercial heavy lift services from at least two suppliers; leasing private space stations in Earth orbit by 2028 to support planned closure of the International Space Station (ISS) by 2030; incentivizing and leasing lunar communications and navigation services from commercial providers until 2030; and operating a private nuclear reactor on the Moon by 2030.
He said he is also looking for missions to demonstrate the commercial acquisition and return to Earth of rare earth materials from an asteroid.
“That, and the safety of human spaceflight, will make for a good year,” he said.
Most experts agree that 2026 will see further progress in public-private partnerships in space, especially with NASA under Isaacman's watch. Blue Origin proved in November that it was finally able to get its groundbreaking New Glenn rocket off the launch pad and headed to Mars, and is planning a test flight of its Blue Moon lunar lander, NASA's choice for Artemis 5, early this year, no earlier than March 2030.
Musk's SpaceX, which builds the Human Landing System (HLS) for Artemis 3 and Artemis 4, continues to dominate the sector, carrying astronauts into low-Earth orbit to the ISS and expanding its Starlink satellite communications network. In 2025 the company set another launch record in one year – 165 – not counting several test flights of starships.
Even Virgin Galactic, one of several private NASA contract holders but largely muted following the retirement of its travel venture SpaceShipTwo in 2024, has expansion plans aimed at launching its new Delta-class spacecraft until the end of the year.
Dreyer said he will look beyond the Artemis 3 moon landing before he can assess how successful NASA's reliance on private partners, particularly SpaceX and eventually Blue Origin, for human spaceflight will be.
“Launching is the easy part of all this. Getting things into space is the easy part,” he said.
“It's a lot harder to land, especially to land on another celestial body. We've invested a huge amount of national prestige, politics and, to some extent, national security planning around the fact that one or two companies that have never done it before will do it for us.”
“In this way, the United States has become something of an observer of its national priority, rather than being in control of it.”
