President Trump signals a potential Moon landing by 2028 as he meets the Artemis 2 crew, balancing ambitious political timelines with NASA’s deep-space engineering.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told lawmakers on Monday that SpaceX and Blue Origin, the agency’s two lunar lander contractors, say they could have their spacecraft ready for the next Artemis mission in Earth orbit in late 2027,

The Artemis program was officially named and announced by NASA in May 2019, when Artemis III was intended to land “the first woman and next man” on the lunar South Pole in 2024. Since then, the uncrewed Artemis I test flight launched in 2022, and Artemis II is complete.

NASA still plans to put astronauts on the lunar surface by early 2028, but the path to get there now includes an extra mission and a growing list of unresolved risks, chief among them whether the spacesuits they’ll need will be ready in time.