Why Artemis II Changes The New Moon Race – Analysis


Four astronauts aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft atop the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket launch on the agency’s Artemis II test flight, Wednesday, April 1 from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo Credit: NASA


April 12, 2026 
By Collins Chong Yew Keat


The Artemis II astronauts on Friday made a triumphant return to Earth. After travelling nearly 700,000 miles, and hurtling back home to Earth at 24,000 mph, the Artemis II mission projects a new moment of historic breakthrough for mankind, and is one of the most consequential space missions of the modern era.

It is the first human journey around the Moon in more than 50 years, and it has now carried humans at the farthest point from Earth in history. In the 10-day voyage, Artemis II is not just a lunar landing mission but a decisive proving ground for the entire ecosystem of systems, crew operations, deep-space navigation, and high-speed re-entry capabilities that will underpin America’s return to the Moon and, eventually, missions to Mars.

The mission completed a successful lunar flyby in the Orion craft, passed within about 4,067 miles of the lunar surface, and reached a maximum distance of roughly 252,760 miles from Earth, eclipsing the record set by Apollo 13 in 1970. It then went on a free return trajectory that loops around the Moon and carries them home.

This further upped the space race, with China still targeting a crewed lunar landing by 2030, and Artemis II has pinpointed a lunar return target in 2028.

China is developing the Long March 10 rocket, Mengzhou spacecraft, and Lanyue lander to deliver the target by 2030, while Artemis II changes the psychology of that contest.


The job for Artemis II was to show that it could sustain a crew in lunar space and bring them back safely, and it has proven that.

It remained a highly complex mission built around data production and gathering, using the crew as scientific instruments alongside cameras and telemetry, to get the needed data for future Moon landings.
Why the 2026–2028 Window is Strategically Decisive

The success of Artemis II has paved the way for the U.S. to establish a greater headstart in the first sustained lunar infrastructure – in habitats, power systems, mobility, and communications.


The new race to the Moon is really about two realistic fronts. The first remains obvious: who will land astronauts there and also prove they can keep going back. The second contest matters just as realistically in the long run: who gets to shape the rules, partnerships and economic system around the Moon once there, in the long term.

In space, the country that builds the broadest coalition and sets the standards often gains an added long term edge that lasts far beyond a single mission. On that front, the United States is ahead by all indicators. NASA says the Artemis Accords had reached 61 signatories by early this year. China and Russia are promoting their own International Lunar Research Station framework, but it remains much smaller. This means that the American-led approach enjoys wider international support, with greater legitimacy.

If NASA can stay on track for an early 2028 landing, the United States will have a bigger advantage in shaping the next long trajectory in the space race.

Russia, by contrast, is no longer in the same league and its lunar plans have suffered repeated delays, further limited by the ongoing Ukraine crisis.

Russian lunar missions – Luna-28, Luna-29, and Luna-3, were postponed to between 2032 and 2036 and its launch rate also trails far behind both the United States and China.

In the new Moon race, the United States still holds the broader strategic advantage, China remains the most serious challenger, and Russia is falling behind.
America’s Systemic Edge Beyond NASA

America’s biggest advantage in the new Moon race is not based on NASA alone, but on a more strategic structure and a larger system behind NASA. Too often, the Moon and the space race is framed as a simple contest between governments. Artemis II shows something more important: where the United States combines the synergy of government direction, private-sector innovation, allied support and industrial scale in a way that no rival has the capacity to match.


NASA did not rely on a single company for the future lander. It awarded SpaceX the first Human Landing System contract, then later brought in Blue Origin as a second provider with another multibillion-dollar award. This is also an intended strategy to spread risk, preserve competition and improve mission resilience.

This also explains why and how this second Moon race is systemically different from the Apollo era. America’s space effort is no longer driven by government spending alone, the commercial space economy is now huge, and private capital is helping to both expand and sustain it.

SpaceX is the clearest and easiest example. It has formed an overwhelming majority of U.S. orbital launches in 2025. This large-scale capacity helps produce revenue, supports rapid testing and allows constant reinvestment.

The second example is Blue Origin, serving as a second provider that strengthens long-term resilience and avoids dependence on a single company.

This U.S. model is hard to replicate elsewhere. It remains difficult for China and Russia to possess a similar model. China is capable and serious, but the American system combines multiple plus points in parallel: private capital, commercial markets, exportable services, allied participation and government demand across both civil and national security sectors.
Space Force and Full-Spectrum Space Power

Trump’s space strategy is not solely on prestige launches but increasingly on fusing civil exploration, military positioning, and commercial dominance into one comprehensive architecture of national power.

By focusing on the Artemis project, it is not merely a NASA project. This is where Trump’s Space Force project becomes far more consequential and strategic. The Space Force’s own strategy emphasises “hybrid architectures” that combine military, allied, and commercial systems, with capacity for missile warning, missile tracking, launch, secure communications, and resilient orbital networks. This suits the modern space supremacy where it is not just about having a few powerful satellites but about having a layered, survivable system that can deter and react faster.

When this military architecture is combined with the Moon programme, the U.S. gains an advantage in linking launch dominance, satellite resilience, deep-space logistics, alliance integration, and long-term strategic presence.


The United States still stands alone in combining Space Force, unmatched commercial launch and satellite capacity, allied interoperability, and an expanding lunar agenda within one strategic vision.

This deepens the gap between the U.S. and other rivals in the broader ecosystem of counterspace advantage through missile-warning constellations, tracking layers, GPS, command-and-control, secure communications, and the capacity to detect, withstand, and respond to hostile action in space.

Compared with its earlier phase during its formation, the Space Force under Trump is now far more operational, better funded, and more lethal where modern war matters most. Its budget request jumps from about $40 billion to $71 billion. Paired with Artemis and the wider lunar push, this gives the United States not just prestige in space, but a full-spectrum space power advantage that no rival has yet matched.
Public Momentum and the Human Future on the Moon

The release of the much-hyped movie, Project Hail Mary starring Ryan Gosling during the Artemis II period further added to the public excitement, curiosity and interest in the wonders and power of space, reinforcing a sense of momentum.

When a major deep-space mission unfolds alongside popular science-fiction culture and movie impact, it strengthens the overall objective of elevating ambition, public interest and technological confidence.

Beyond strategy, rivalry and geopolitics, a sustained human presence on the Moon would be monumental for mankind itself.
NASA frames Artemis as a programme for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and preparation for future missions to Mars, which will be another frontier in the feat of humanity.

A long-term footprint on Moon the will also benefit technology testing, international cooperation, and the development of local resource use such as water, oxygen, and fuel production.

A new prolonged foothold on the Moon will be the key not only to showcasing new pride for mankind but also to unlocking new breakthroughs in energy, robotics, communications, and life-support technologies for the future of Earth.

This explains why the value of a sustained lunar presence is not just national prestige or confined to a country alone, but could be the precursor to becoming a global laboratory, an economic frontier, and a stepping stone that expands new openings for humanity, and perhaps in searching for a new continuity beyond Earth as a fallback option.

For now, the second Moon race is not over. But Artemis II has shown that the United States still has the reach and the strategic depth to lead it, while global rivalry for space dominance will still be prevalent.

Collins Chong Yew Keat

Collins Chong Yew Keat has been serving in University of Malaya, the top university in Malaysia for more than 9 years. His areas of interests include strategic and security studies, American foreign policy and power analysis and has published various publications on numerous platforms including books and chapter articles. He is also a regular contributor in providing op-eds for both the local and international media on various contemporary global issues and regional affairs since 2007.