At the 21st Ilan Ramon International Space Conference, a NASA astronaut described Artemis II as the first manned step around the moon, and Gateway as the interim station for the era after the International Space Station.
“The Artemis program campaign is designed not only to return humans to the Moon, but to learn how to live and work on another world – as a step on the path to Mars.” This is how NASA presents the goal of the campaign.
This is how astronaut Randy “Komrade” Bresnik framed his keynote address at the 21st Ilan Ramon International Space Conference, held on January 28, 2026 at the Smolarsh Auditorium at Tel Aviv University, under the title: “Returning to the Moon: The Artemis Program and the Next Era of Human Exploration.” Bresnik, who currently holds a management position in NASA’s Astronaut Office in the field of “Beyond Low Earth Orbit” missions, presented Artemis as a multi-phase campaign: system tests, a crewed flight around the moon, a crewed landing, construction of an intermediate station in lunar orbit – and then expanding capabilities towards deeper missions. (uhcl.edu)
Artemis II: The first manned flight around the moon
At the heart of the lecture was Artemis plan In its next critical phase: Artemis II – the campaign’s first manned mission, scheduled “no earlier than 06-02-2026.” According to NASA, this is a 10-day mission during which the Orion spacecraft will enter a high elliptical orbit around the Earth, perform an injection into lunar orbit, and fly on a “Hybrid Free Return” trajectory – a design that allows for a return to Earth even in certain scenarios of design changes/abnormalities, using the gravitational dynamics of the Earth-Moon system.
NASA defines the Artemis II crew as four astronauts: Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. The official mission briefings also emphasize the “manual flight” dimension – practicing controlling manned space systems outside of low-Earth orbit, with an emphasis on navigation, communications, and spacecraft operation in an environment where the window for error is smaller and ground support is relatively limited.
Bresnik positioned Artemis II as a “systems competency test” mission – not just one spacecraft, but an entire fabric: the Space Launch System (SLS) launcher, Orion spacecraft, ground systems, communications, and mission control – in preparation for the more complex parts of the campaign later. (NASA)
From Moon circling to landing: Artemis III and the Gateway Station
In the second part, Bresnik emphasized that the great challenge of Artemis plan It is not “just getting there,” but rather building a continuum of capabilities: a manned landing, extended science and engineering activities, and mission-support infrastructure. In NASA planning terms, Artemis III is supposed to be the mission that returns humans to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo era, using a manned landing system provided by SpaceX—a lunar version of Starship as part of the Human Landing System. (NASA)
Next comes Gateway, a small space station in a “Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO)” orbit, designed to orbit the moon in about 6.5 days, coming within about 1,500 km of the lunar surface at the point of closest approach, and moving out to about 70,000 km at the point of farthest. NASA describes Artemis IV as a key step in making Gateway an operational platform – a “choreography” of launches, dockings and assemblies in lunar orbit, as part of the transition to a more sustainable human presence around and near the moon.
In the lecture, this was presented not as another symbolic goal, but as an architecture: a way station that allows for operational flexibility, “parking” for lunar missions, and better risk management – especially as we enter a phase where missions also depend on commercial partners and complex supply chains.
The Israeli Context: Partnership, Inspiration, and a Framework for Action
The choice to present Artemis specifically at the Ilan Ramon Conference also took on a symbolic dimension. NASA itself has previously linked the conference to collaborations: Israel signed the “Artemis Accords” at a ceremony in Tel Aviv on January 26, 2022, an event that was explicitly linked to commemorating Ramon’s legacy and international collaborations in space. Within this context, Bresnik’s lecture emphasized that Artemis is not a “purely American” program, but a campaign that is pre-defined as a combination of international and commercial partners – with all the opportunities and complexities that this creates.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
