Editor’s note (April 2026): Since this article was published, Artemis II launched, conducted its mission and successfully returned to Earth with a safe splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, marking a major milestone in NASA’s return to crewed lunar exploration. The mission builds on the legacy and contributions described below, advancing human spaceflight capabilities and paving the way for future lunar surface missions.

NASA’s return to the Moon began in November 2022 with the successful Artemis I launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket from Kennedy Space Center. During launch and ascent, the SLS produced 8.8 million pounds of maximum thrust, placing an uncrewed Orion spacecraft into orbit 280,000 miles from Earth, breaking the record set by Apollo 13 for distance traveled by a spacecraft designed for human spaceflight.

With its robust payload mass, volume and energy capacities, SLS is today the world’s most powerful, fully operational deep-space rocket. Standing taller than the Statue of Liberty at 322 feet, the SLS and Orion stack will soon launch the Artemis II mission and its four astronauts on the first crewed flyby of the Moon in more than half a century.  

Like its predecessor the Apollo program, the Artemis campaign represents one of the most massive, complex technical undertakings in human history, involving collaborators across all space sectors. As a trusted partner in supporting NASA’s Moon to Mars objectives, The Aerospace Corporation is contributing launch systems expertise to Artemis that has been honed over decades of advancing the nation’s space missions.  
 

Comprehensive Launch Support from Atlas to Artemis

Since the beginning of the nation’s space program, Aerospace has provided its technical expertise across a breadth of disciplines in support of government missions and increasingly powerful launch systems. For the Atlas rockets which powered the earliest orbital human spaceflight missions, Aerospace conducted independent analyses and flight system evaluation, with special attention given to improving the performance and cost efficiency of first-flight hardware.

More recently, Aerospace has provided broad-based mission assurance for Atlas V, Delta IV and Vulcan launch programs — rockets built by SLS upper stage developer United Launch Alliance (ULA). Aerospace’s support to Falcon launches has included working with NASA through its Commercial Crew Program and partnering extensively with the Space Force and SpaceX, leveraging a cloud platform analysis tool to simulate launch trajectory, verify orbit accuracy and propellant margins, and assess the robustness of flight software.

Artemis adds another chapter to Aerospace’s decades-long launch partnerships with every national space agency and the U.S. launch industrial base. “NASA came to us because of our extensive track record of ensuring the success of generations of launches. We had extensive insight into how the Air Force and others design and fly launch vehicles, and we were the only organization that could provide that insight,” said Dr. Alvar Kabe, distinguished engineer and scientist in Aerospace’s Vehicle Systems Division. “That cumulative knowledge enabled us to serve in the capacity that we did to support the success of the SLS.”
 

Validating SLS Software for Human Spaceflight

Aerospace contributed to the success of the Artemis I mission throughout the design certification and review of the SLS, performing independent verification and validation (IV&V) of the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) flight software and guidance, navigation and control capabilities. The ICPS — a modified Delta IV Cryogenic Second Stage built by ULA and Boeing — was the upper stage for the Artemis I launch and will be used again for Artemis II and III missions. (NASA recently announced that for future missions, it will transition from the ICPS upper stage to the Centaur V upper stage used for Vulcan launches.)

The crewed nature of Artemis II introduces new considerations for the NASA and industry teams who must integrate spacesuits and environmental control and life support systems onboard Orion. One of these systems — the mission-critical Emergency Detection System (EDS) — will monitor for any major system failures during SLS ascent and trigger an abort system to allow Orion and its crew to escape safely. These systems also require IV&V, which a NASA team would normally conduct for Class-A-rated missions like Artemis I and II, since they involve the agency’s lowest tolerance thresholds for risk.

“Aerospace is at the center of the entire national ecosystem that exists to design launch vehicles and spacecraft structural systems and is actually the only organization that has insight into all of the elements necessary to do this,” said Kabe.

Through its partnership with ULA supporting national security space missions, Aerospace had familiarity with the systems, infrastructure and personnel powering the development and operation of ICPS, including an operational emulator of the ULA flight computer. This positioned Aerospace to efficiently fulfill the IV&V functions for Artemis I and apply the necessary focus on the changes unique to the SLS configuration for Artemis II.

“The EDS was the biggest new hill to climb for Artemis II, but ULA did a very good job of integrating their systems for ICPS and our muscle memory for working with them really reduced the learning curve on both sides,” said Randy Williams, Aerospace’s systems director for civil and commercial launch projects. “We know their avionics, we know their software build, and we know their engineers. To be trusted by NASA and ULA to perform that role is a testament to this familiarity and partnership.”
 

Increased Capabilities, Boundless Possibilities  

Mission success for SLS, Orion and the entire Artemis architecture would ultimately enable even more ambitious endeavors—additional lunar landings, crewed missions to planets beyond Mars, and a long-term return to the Moon’s surface.  

Aerospace remains engaged in the future exploration of the solar system and its implications for the U.S. space industry and for humanity and will continue to build upon a legacy of supporting missions critical to the space economy while supporting job growth and furthering demand for a highly skilled workforce — all characteristics of a vibrant industrial base that can fuel innovation and new economies.

“This is meaningful work,” said Williams. “There’s always a desire within Aerospace’s engineering ranks to fulfill childhood dreams of working on human-rated missions. The first human exploration missions out of earth’s orbit in the last 50 years are opportunities our people want to hang their hats on and be part of.”