NASA announcing update to Artemis moon plans today: Watch it live

Ignition: NASA's Plan for The Moon - YouTube

NASA will hold a series of events today (March 24) that update us on the agency's plans for the moon and more, and you can watch them live.

The agency is hosting a day-long set of panels and briefings at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. "to outline how the agency is executing President Donald J. Trump’s National Space Policy and accelerating preparations for America’s return to the surface of the moon by 2028," NASA wrote in an update on Monday (March 23).

Three of these events will be livestreamed, according to the agency's NASA+ schedule. You can watch them here at Space.com or directly via the space agency.

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The online action will kick off at 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT), with an event called "Ignition: NASA's Plan for the Moon." That will be followed at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) by "Ignition: NASA's Plan for Science and Discovery" and a news conference at 4:45 p.m. EDT (2045 GMT).

The late-afternoon briefing will "provide an update on the agency's progress toward implementing the National Space Policy and recapping major announcements discussed throughout the day," NASA officials wrote in Monday's update.

That news conference will feature some NASA heavy hitters. The participants are:

Administrator Jared Isaacman
Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya
Dana Weigel, program manager, International Space Station Program
Carlos Garcia-Galan, program executive, Moon Base
Steve Sinacore, program executive, Fission Surface Power
Dr. Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate
Dr. Lori Glaze, program manager, Moon to Mars Program

Today's news will come on top of recent changes to NASA's Artemis program of moon exploration.

In late February, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced that the program's first crewed lunar landing will come on the Artemis 4 mission, not Artemis 3 as originally planned. Artemis 3 will now go to Earth orbit and practice rendezvous and docking between the program's Orion capsule and one or both of the private Artemis crew landers (SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's Blue Moon).

NASA is currently gearing up to launch Artemis 2, which will send four astronauts on a loop around the moon and back to Earth, as soon as April 1. Artemis 3 and Artemis 4 are targeted for 2027 and 2028, respectively.

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

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