Four people sit behind a curved desk with microphones in a studio setting. A large screen behind them displays the words “ARTEMIS ACCELERATION” over an image of the Moon’s surface. A NASA flag stands at the right side of the stage. The desk is illuminated with blue lighting, and papers and a laptop are visible on the tabletop.
From left to right, NASA Deputy Press Secretary George Alderman; NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman; NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya; Jeremy Parsons, NASA’s Artemis program manager, participate in a news conference on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The briefing was to update media about NASA’s Artemis III mission that will send four astronauts to low Earth orbit in 2027 to test critical systems needed for future lunar landings, and how plans to return American astronauts to the Moon by 2028 are progressing.
NASA/Cory S Huston

In an update Friday, Oct. 23, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and other agency leaders provided the agency’s path forward to returning Americans to the lunar surface in 2028. The briefing included details about NASA’s Artemis III mission that will send four astronauts to low Earth orbit next year to test critical systems needed for future lunar landings, and information about acceleration efforts to ensure the success of Artemis IV, the first Artemis mission on the lunar surface.

Watch a recording of the update below.

NASA Shares Artemis Acceleration Plans for Moon Missions