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Artemis Program

NASA

Artemis is NASA's flagship human lunar exploration programme, targeting a sustained cadence of Moon landings through the end of the decade and into the 2030s, underpinned by the Space Launch System (SLS), the Orion crew vehicle, commercial Human Landing Systems (HLS), and the Gateway lunar outpost [1]. Artemis II — launched 1 April 2026 and completed 10 April 2026 after 9 days, 1 hour and 32 minutes — was the first crewed Orion flight, taking four astronauts on a free-return lunar flyby for the first time in over 50 years [2]. Artemis III, targeted for 2027, will serve as a Low Earth Orbit rendezvous-and-docking demonstration using one or both commercial landers before the first crewed lunar surface landing [1]. Artemis IV — currently targeted for early 2028 — will be the first crewed landing near the lunar South Pole, with two of four astronauts descending to the surface via SpaceX's Starship HLS [3]. NASA's OIG (IG-26-004, March 2026) found that lander development challenges will delay planned Artemis launch dates, flagging lack of crew rescue capability as an open risk [6]. As of May 2026, 67 nations have signed the Artemis Accords, underscoring broad international support for NASA's rules-based lunar framework [5].

Gaganyaan Programme

ISRO

Gaganyaan is the Government of India's flagship human spaceflight programme, executed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) with regulatory oversight from the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) [1][7]. The architecture combines a 5.3-tonne orbital module (a crew module mated to a service module) launched by a human-rated variant of the LVM3 vehicle — formerly the GSLV Mk III — using the indigenous S200 solid boosters, the L110 liquid core stage burning UDMH/N2O4 via twin Vikas engines, and the cryogenic C25 stage powered by the CE-20 engine [2]. The crew escape system was first demonstrated on the TV-D1 in-flight abort test from Sriharikota on October 21, 2023, with the TV-D2 follow-on test expected to qualify a higher-altitude abort regime before the first uncrewed orbital flight (G1) [5][8]. In February 2024 Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly named the four IAF test-pilot astronaut-designates — Group Captain Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, Group Captain Angad Pratap, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla — completing a Russian-led basic training rotation at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre before continuing systems-specific training in Bengaluru [6]. The Axiom-4 commercial mission to the International Space Station, on which Group Captain Shukla flew as a designated pilot in mid-2025, provided ISRO's first operational human-spaceflight experience and de-risked life-support, EVA-suit donning and on-orbit health protocols ahead of the crewed Gaganyaan flight [9]. Beyond the initial three-day mission, the Union Cabinet in September 2024 approved the Bharatiya Antariksha Station (BAS) — a five-module Indian space station with the first module targeted by 2028 and full configuration by approximately 2035 — alongside an expanded Gaganyaan envelope to support eight follow-on crewed missions through 2035 [4][7].

Chandrayaan Programme

ISRO

The Chandrayaan programme is the Indian Space Research Organisation's flagship lunar exploration series, executed under the Department of Space and increasingly opened to private contractors under the IN-SPACe regulatory framework [1][8]. Chandrayaan-1, launched on PSLV-C11 on October 22, 2008, was India's first deep-space mission; it carried 11 instruments (including NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper, M3, and ISRO's Moon Impact Probe) and returned spectral data that — when published in Science in September 2009 — provided the first widely accepted evidence for hydroxyl and water molecules on the sunlit lunar surface [2][3]. Chandrayaan-2, launched on GSLV Mk III in July 2019, deployed an orbiter (still operational and returning high-resolution imagery and CLASS X-ray spectrometer data as of 2026) plus the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover; Vikram lost attitude control during the final descent and crash-landed on September 7, 2019, approximately 2.1 km from the targeted Manzinus crater area [4][9]. Chandrayaan-3, launched on LVM3-M4 from Sriharikota on July 14, 2023 and soft-landed on August 23, 2023 at 6:04 PM IST, made India the fourth nation to achieve a controlled lunar soft landing and the first to land near the lunar south pole — the landing site was officially named Shiv Shakti Point by the Government of India [5]. The mission's total approved cost of Rs 615 crore (~$75M) made it one of the cheapest soft-lunar landers ever flown; the Pragyan rover operated for one lunar day (~14 Earth days) and the LIBS / APXS payloads confirmed in-situ detection of sulphur near the south pole [5][6]. Chandrayaan-4, approved by the Union Cabinet on September 18, 2024 at an outlay of Rs 2,104.06 crore, is a two-launch sample-return mission targeting the south-polar region with a target return-to-Earth in 2027-2028 [7]. The Lunar Polar Exploration mission (LUPEX) — jointly executed with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), with JAXA providing the H3 launcher and rover and ISRO providing the lander — targets in-situ characterisation of polar water ice and is currently scheduled for the late-2020s window [10].

Commercial Crew Program

NASA

The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) was established by NASA to develop and certify privately built crew transportation systems for International Space Station rotation flights after Space Shuttle retirement in 2011 [1]. Through a series of competitive Space Act Agreements (CCDev, CCDev-2, CCiCap) and ultimately fixed-price Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts, NASA selected SpaceX (Crew Dragon) and Boeing (CST-100 Starliner) in September 2014 [3]. SpaceX's Demo-2 in May 2020 returned US human-launch capability for the first time since STS-135 in 2011, and Crew Dragon has since flown nine operational long-duration rotation missions (Crew-1 through Crew-10 and beyond) plus three Demo / private flights [2]. Boeing's Starliner Crew Flight Test (CFT) launched June 5, 2024 carrying astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the ISS, but thruster anomalies and helium leaks caused NASA to return the astronauts on Crew Dragon in March 2025; Starliner's first operational rotation (Starliner-1) has slipped no-earlier-than 2026 pending further certification [5]. The model — NASA buys transportation services rather than owning hardware — is widely cited as having saved billions versus a traditional cost-plus development and is the template for HLS, Gateway logistics, and Commercial LEO Destinations [6].

Rocket Lab is a vertically integrated, end-to-end space company. It generates revenue from two segments: Launch Services (Electron small launch, up to 300 kg to LEO; HASTE hypersonic testbed) and Space Systems (spacecraft buses, subsystems, components — solar panels, reaction wheels, separation systems). Government and defense contracts dominate the backlog; Neutron (medium-heavy lift, ~13,000 kg to LEO) is in development for potential first flight Q4 2026.

Intuitive Machines operates in two primary segments: Lunar Access Services (Nova-C and Nova-D lunar landers under NASA CLPS task orders; rideshare payloads) and Space Products & Services (Near Space Network communications relay infrastructure, data services, orbital platforms). The $4.82B NSN IDIQ contract is the company's long-term anchor — lunar relay satellites will provide comms and navigation to NASA Artemis, CLPS, LTV, and future cislunar missions.

AST SpaceMobile operates a LEO satellite constellation that provides direct-to-device broadband connectivity to standard unmodified smartphones — no specialized hardware required on the consumer device. Revenue comes from wholesale service agreements with mobile network operators (MNOs) who pay per subscriber per month; Q4 2025 saw $54.3M in revenue from gateway deliveries across 5 continents and U.S. government service contracts. Block 1 (5 BlueBird satellites) demonstrated commercial capability; Block 2 (~60 satellites) targets continuous global coverage.

Redwire is a pure-play space infrastructure company with 100% space-derived revenue. It supplies mission-critical hardware — roll-out solar arrays (ROSA/iROSA), radiation-hardened electronics, avionics, deployable structures, and in-space manufacturing systems — to NASA, DoD, and commercial customers. Revenue is project-based through fixed-price and cost-plus contracts; the Edge Autonomy acquisition (2025) added airborne autonomous systems.