Four months after former U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a coordinated war against Iran with promises of rapid regime change and a transformed Middle East, the region has indeed been reshaped — but not in the way the two leaders predicted. What was supposed to be a quick, decisive victory that would topple the Islamic Republic has instead devolved into a drawn-out, grinding permacrisis, teetering between sporadic escalation and simmering tension that threatens global stability.
标签： North America
北美洲
-
A World Cup guide for new football fans
The global buzz building ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup is impossible to ignore. As the most watched and beloved sporting event on the planet, this iteration of soccer’s biggest prize carries unprecedented historical significance: for the first time in the tournament’s 92-year existence, it will be co-hosted across three North American nations — the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
Kicking off the month-long tournament on June 11 in Mexico City, the 2026 World Cup will wrap up with the final showdown on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in the U.S. state of New Jersey. This edition also marks a major expansion of the tournament format, growing from 32 to 48 competing nations drawn into 12 four-team groups based on global FIFA rankings.
For new soccer fans new unfamiliar with World Cup rules, the tournament structure follows a straightforward framework. The top two finishing teams from each group advance automatically to the knockout round of 32, with the remaining eight knockout spots going to the highest-ranked third-place teams from the group stage. Match scoring awards three points for a win, one point for a draw, and zero points for a loss, with 16 teams eliminated in the first knockout round.
Standard 90-minute matches are split into two 45-minute halves with a 15-minute halftime break, with stoppage time added at the end of each half to offset time lost to injury treatment, game delays, and mandatory water breaks implemented by FIFA to combat summer heat across the host cities. No penalty shootouts are held during the group stage; if a knockout match ends in a draw after regulation, 30 minutes of extra time is played, and a penalty shootout will determine the winner if the score remains tied.
Host cities are spread across all three co-host nations: Mexico will host matches in Guadalajara, Monterrey, and Mexico City; Canada will host in Toronto and Vancouver; and 11 U.S. metropolitan areas — Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area, and Seattle — will welcome teams and fans.
Heading into the tournament, multiple squads enter as top contenders to lift the trophy. Two-time winners France, led by global superstars Kylian Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé who consistently dominate Europe’s top club competitions, are widely tipped to reach the final again. 2010 champions Spain are banking on their new generation of young talent, headlined by 18-year-old Lamine Yamal, to claim their second major international title in two years. England, still recovering from back-to-back European Championship final heartbreaks, also enter as a strong contender, while five-time champions Brazil — the most successful nation in World Cup history — are chasing their first title since 2002 to extend their record.
This year’s tournament will feature no shortage of must-watch players. Mbappé, making his third World Cup appearance for France after leading the side to one title and one second-place finish in the last two tournaments, is expected to dominate the competition. Yamal, Spain’s teenaged prodigy, is poised to cement his status as one of soccer’s next global superstars. The tournament will also likely be the final major international appearance for two of the sport’s all-time greats: Argentina’s Lionel Messi, who will turn 39 in June, and Portugal’s 41-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo, whose two-decade rivalry shaped modern men’s soccer. Other standout players to watch include Brazilian playmakers Neymar and Vinícius Júnior, England’s Jude Bellingham, host nation standouts Christian Pulisic (USA) and Alphonso Davies (Canada), South Korea’s Son Heung-min, Ghana’s Antoine Semenyo, and record-breaking Norwegian striker Erling Haaland.
The expanded 48-team format has created a historic moment for underdog soccer nations, with four countries making their World Cup debuts in 2026. Curaçao, a Caribbean nation with just 156,000 residents, will break Iceland’s 2018 record as the smallest country ever to qualify for the tournament. Fellow island nation Cape Verde, with a population of roughly 500,000, will enter as the third smallest qualifying nation in World Cup history. Jordan has also qualified for the first time in its history, with King Abdullah II granting Moroccan-born head coach Jamal Sellami Jordanian citizenship in recognition of his work leading the team to qualification. Rounding out the debutantes is Uzbekistan, led by head coach Fabio Cannavaro — a four-time World Cup participant who captained Italy to the 2006 tournament title.
Beyond on-pitch action, the 2026 World Cup carries layered political and historical context that will shape key group stage matches. When France faces Senegal on June 16, the tie will be framed by their shared colonial history, echoing the 2002 World Cup where Senegal pulled off a legendary upset over the defending champion French side. Ghana and England, another pair tied by colonial history, will face off in Philadelphia on June 23. A June group stage match between Iran and Egypt in Seattle has drawn global attention after the match was branded a “Pride” match by local organizers to celebrate the city’s LGBT community, a move that prompted formal objections from both national federations. Same-sex relations remain criminalized in both nations, and the global football community will closely watch how the teams and FIFA navigate the situation. Iran’s participation also carries extra geopolitical weight amid ongoing tensions with co-host the United States; all of Iran’s group stage matches are held on U.S. soil, but the team has opted to base its training camp in Mexico and commute to matches. The tournament will also welcome two returning sides after long absences: Haiti will play its first World Cup match since 1974, while Scotland returns for the first time in 28 years.
-
Nasa reveals crew for Artemis III mission
In a landmark announcement that has advanced one of the world’s most high-profile deep space exploration programs, NASA has formally named the crew set to fly on its upcoming Artemis III mission. Unlike the historic first crewed lunar landing missions of the Apollo program, this mission carries a distinct operational focus: it will serve as a critical full-system test flight ahead of the agency’s long-planned return of astronauts to the lunar surface.
The four-person crew assigned to the mission is composed entirely of male astronauts, a detail that has drawn quiet note amid earlier discussions about diversity in the Artemis program’s astronaut corps. Scheduled for launch in 2027, the mission will put all core Artemis systems – from the Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule to new extravehicular activity suits and lunar orbit communications infrastructure – through their paces in the real conditions of cislunar space.
This test flight represents a make-or-break milestone for NASA’s Artemis initiative, which aims to establish a sustainable long-term human presence on the Moon and lay the groundwork for future crewed missions to Mars. Engineers and program leaders will use data collected during Artemis III to resolve any remaining technical issues before the agency attempts its first crewed lunar surface landing in more than half a century. The 2027 launch timeline reflects recent adjustments to the Artemis program schedule, which were implemented to ensure thorough testing and mitigate development risks for the complex new hardware at the heart of the initiative.
-
Version of AI tool ‘too powerful for public’ released to public
In a move that has reignited global debate over the risks and rewards of cutting-edge artificial intelligence development, AI startup Anthropic has announced the public release of Claude Fable 5, a model the firm itself previously deemed too powerful to share with the general population.
The release comes nearly three months after the company first rolled out a private preview of Claude Mythos, the base architecture for both new models, to a select group of testing organizations in April. That early limited release sparked immediate alarm across technology, financial, and government circles, with many stakeholders flagging the model’s unprecedented capabilities as a major potential threat to digital and economic security. Critics have also pushed back, however, arguing that much of the hype surrounding the model’s power is little more than deliberate marketing positioning to boost the company’s profile ahead of its expected public listing.
When Anthropic first shared Mythos with its small initial test group, company leaders openly warned that the model’s advanced intelligence gave it the ability to exploit vulnerabilities and hack computer systems, making it inherently dangerous for broad distribution. Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne echoed that uncertainty in an April interview with the BBC, noting that heightened scrutiny of the model was justified by the sheer scale of uncharted risk it represented, calling it an “unknown, unknown.”
Notably, even amid an ongoing legal dispute between Anthropic and the U.S. Department of Defense over the company’s refusal to allow its AI tools to be used for government purposes, multiple U.S. federal agencies have already joined the early testing program for Mythos.
The company’s upcoming initial public offering is a major context for this release: Anthropic’s current private market valuation has already climbed to nearly $1 trillion (£747 billion), and demonstrating consistent, expanding AI capabilities is a key step to reinforce its appeal to prospective public investors.
Alongside the public launch of Fable 5, Anthropic announced Tuesday that the roughly 150 organizations that participated in the original Mythos preview will now gain access to Claude Mythos 5. Unlike Fable, Mythos 5 does not include built-in restrictions related to cybersecurity and biological research use cases, with access tailored to an organization’s specific authorized activities. To date, organizations testing early versions of the model have reported that it helped them identify more than 10,000 critical security flaws in their internal systems, a tangible benefit that company leaders highlight to justify expanding access.
Right now, expanded access to Mythos 5 is restricted to a “small group of cyberdefenders and infrastructure providers,” but Anthropic confirmed it plans to roll out access more widely in the near future through a formal trusted access program for vetted organizations.
Both Fable 5 and Mythos 5 are built on the same core model architecture, differing only in the safeguards and access restrictions applied to each. Anthropic confirmed that both models are capable of operating autonomously “unattended” to complete complex user commands over much longer time frames than any previous iteration of the company’s Claude models.
Even as the company moves forward with releasing these more capable models, Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark warned last week in an interview with BBC Newsnight that AI capabilities are advancing so quickly that the industry needs to build guardrails to allow for slowing development if needed. Clark argued that the current AI ecosystem is structured to push for constant acceleration without any mechanism to pause or slow progress, saying, “You want the option to be able to take your foot off the gas and put your foot on the brake. Right now, it’s like the AI industry has a gas pedal, but it doesn’t have a brake pedal.”
Anthropic emphasized in its announcement Tuesday that Fable 5 is being launched with a full suite of built-in safeguards and user limitations in place, but the company did not downplay the inherent risks of releasing a model of this capability. The firm acknowledged openly that “releasing a model this capable comes with risks,” adding that Fable’s capabilities outpace any model the company has ever made available to the general public.
-
Williams rolls back the years on return at Queen’s
One of the greatest tennis athletes in history has pulled off a remarkable fairy-tale return to competitive play: 44-year-old Serena Williams secured a straight-sets doubles win at London’s iconic Queen’s Club on Tuesday, 1,375 days after stepping away from elite competition. This performance capped off months of growing speculation around a potential comeback, ending with a triumphant opening match that thrilled a sold-out crowd of more than 9,000 passionate fans packed into the Andy Murray Arena.
Teaming up with 19-year-old Canadian rising star Victoria Mboko, Williams and her untested partner upset third seeds Erin Routliffe and Nicole Melichar-Martinez with a 7-6(2), 6-2 victory. The result defied pre-match expectations that the long layoff would leave Williams rusty and out of place against top-level touring opponents. Far from showing signs of decline, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion displayed many of the traits that made her a global icon: her signature serve hit speeds of up to 120mph, and her powerful groundstrokes remained as precise and devastating as fans remembered from her peak.
While Williams admitted after the match that her first touch of the day was a misplayed close-range volley into the net that briefly stoked worries about lost form, any doubts were completely erased within 92 minutes of the first serve. By the final point, it was Williams’ serve that closed out the win, marking her first match victory since the 2022 US Open, when she originally announced she was “evolving away” from professional tennis after a 27-year legendary career.
Speculation around a return began to build last year when Williams’ name reappeared on the official anti-doping testing pool roster, and speculation grew even louder in February 2024 when she was listed on the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s player reinstatement register. Her participation at Queen’s was only confirmed one week before the tournament, sparking a frenzy for tickets that made the clash the most in-demand event of the 2025 grass-court season to date.
In post-match remarks, Williams downplayed any pressure to prove herself at this stage of her life, framing the comeback as a casual, fun opportunity rather than a full-time return to elite competition. “I had nothing better to do, I got tired of sitting at home,” she explained, noting that her children were on summer break from school, making the timing perfect for a return. She added that Queen’s Club had always been a men’s-only venue for majors during her career, so competing at the iconic London location felt like a special new experience she never got to check off her bucket list.
For Williams, one of the biggest draws of the comeback was the chance to let her two young daughters watch her compete in person for the first time. Eight-year-old Olympia and 1-year-old Adira watched from the stands alongside their father, cheering on their mother as she recreated the shots that made her a legend. When asked what her daughters thought of the win, Williams joked that the young girls had different priorities: “Adira wanted to go to the toy store and Olympia wanted to know what’s for dinner.”
From the moment the players walked onto the court, the raucous roar from the sold-out crowd was clearly directed at Williams, but the former world No. 1 stayed grounded and focused, offering only a brief wave before diving into warm-ups and locking in for the match. Though Williams had said just days earlier that winning was “not important” for her return, her legendary competitive instinct quickly shone through: after every winning point, she raised a clenched fist in celebration, conferred with Mboko on tactical adjustments, and roared in excitement when the teenager sealed key points at the net. She praised Mboko heavily after the match, noting that the pair had never played together before but clicked immediately, and that the young star stepped up in high-pressure moments to keep the pair on track.
The opening win at Queen’s kickstarts Williams’ grass-court comeback, with fans already speculating about a potential appearance at the Wimbledon Championships in the coming weeks, though no official announcement has been made about further tournament plans.
-
Watch: Moment Trump is booed during the national anthem at NBA Finals
A viral moment captured on camera during the 2010s NBA Finals showed former US President Donald Trump being met with loud boos from the crowd inside the arena as the national anthem played. The incident drew immediate attention from political observers, sports fans, and media outlets across the country, quickly spreading across social media platforms. Video footage of the reaction clearly captured the widespread negative sentiment from attendees toward the sitting president at the time. Despite what multiple witnesses and shared footage confirmed, Trump later pushed back on the narrative, claiming the crowd’s reaction was actually “mostly cheers”. In his brief comments following the event, he also characterized the overall in-arena atmosphere as boisterous and highly energetic, framing the crowd’s energy as a positive sign of enthusiasm surrounding the championship series. The clash between the recorded public reaction and Trump’s post-event description sparked widespread debate about political polarization in public spaces, particularly at high-profile national sporting events that draw tens of millions of viewers across the country. Many analysts noted that the moment underscored how deeply divided American public opinion was at the time, even in settings that traditionally bring diverse audiences together around shared athletic competition.
-
Does referee case show Fifa has lost control of its own World Cup?
As the 2026 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, prepares to kick off in 48 hours, a high-profile immigration incident has thrown the tournament into fresh controversy, raising urgent questions about U.S. border policy, FIFA’s leadership, and the politicization of global football.
Omar Artan, Somalia’s top-ranked international referee and one of 52 officials selected to officiate at this year’s tournament, arrived in Miami last week to join final pre-tournament preparations. Despite holding all required documentation, a valid visa, and a formal invitation from FIFA, Artan endured an 11-hour interrogation by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, was detained for several additional hours, and was ultimately forcibly placed on a return flight out of the country. He is now back in Mogadishu, denied the chance to make history as the first Somali referee to work at a men’s senior World Cup.
Artan’s resume, which earned him the coveted World Cup appointment, speaks to his standing as one of the game’s elite officials. Over the past 18 months, he has officiated high-profile matches including the 2025 African Champions League final – the first Somali to ever lead a continental championship final – three matches at the 2025 U-20 World Cup in Chile (including the tournament’s third-place playoff), and multiple group stage matches at back-to-back Africa Cup of Nations tournaments in 2024 and 2025. Speaking before his travel, Artan called his World Cup selection the pinnacle of his career, saying “Every referee’s ambition is to go to the World Cup. When you are selected, you feel that all your hard work was worth it. Years of effort finally made sense.”
The incident has validated long-held fears that U.S. immigration policy under the Trump administration would create discriminatory barriers for visitors from majority-Muslim and African nations ahead of the tournament. Piara Powar, executive director of anti-discrimination football advocacy group Fare, called Artan’s rejection an unprecedented farce. “It is pretty clear that the fears of an ideological and discriminatory visa policy from the US government is being realised,” Powar said. “Never have we seen the farce of an official Fifa referee being refused entry as he arrives for final preparations.”
Artan’s exclusion comes as no surprise to observers tracking the Trump administration’s tightening travel restrictions. In 2017, one of Trump’s first executive orders implemented a travel ban on foreign nationals from seven majority-Muslim nations, including Somalia. That ban was expanded in June 2025 to a full entry ban across all visa categories for 12 countries, which includes not just Somalia, but three World Cup participating nations: DR Congo, Iran, and Haiti. Just weeks before the tournament draw in December 2025, Trump made inflammatory remarks about Somali people, claiming the country “barely exists” and calling Somali immigrants “garbage” that should “go back to where they came from.”
The incident has also exposed a glaring contradiction in FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s approach to host nation compliance. When Indonesia’s Bali governor refused entry to the Israeli men’s U-20 national team ahead of the 2023 U-20 World Cup, FIFA stripped the country of hosting rights entirely, arguing that “any team, including the supporters and officials of that team, who qualify for a World Cup, need to have the access to the country, otherwise there is no World Cup.” That same policy is not being applied to the U.S., despite multiple entry denials for World Cup participants and officials.
Infantino has cultivated a close political relationship with Trump over the past two years, culminating in the controversial decision to award Trump the first-ever FIFA Peace Prize during the 2026 World Cup draw in December. Critics say this alliance has left FIFA unwilling to push back against U.S. policy, even as it disrupts the core functioning of the tournament. When asked about Artan’s case, FIFA issued a neutral statement saying it “is not involved in host country immigration processes, including visa adjudications.” That response has drawn outrage from football figures, including former England and Arsenal striker Ian Wright, who wrote on Instagram: “Every few hours it’s another story, another story about fans denied, players denied, officials denied, journalists denied, now refs. This is a World Cup of chaos.”
This controversy is just the latest in a string of problems plaguing the build-up to the 2026 tournament, which was billed as a return to normalcy after the politically fraught 2018 World Cup in Russia and 2022 in Qatar. Issues including exorbitant ticket prices, a legal subpoena into FIFA’s ticket sales practices, widespread criticism of overpriced hotel accommodations and transport, and repeated entry denials for fans and officials have left the tournament facing more controversy than its two predecessors.
Beyond Artan’s case, broader concerns persist that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will conduct enforcement operations at or near tournament stadiums, chilling travel for international fans with uncertain immigration status. Fan groups have repeatedly criticized the U.S. for creating unnecessary barriers to entry, a sharp break from past host nation practices that prioritized easy access for traveling fans. Russia eliminated all visa requirements for 2018 World Cup visitors, relying instead on a simple fan ID system tied to match tickets. Qatar used a similar pre-screened Hayya card system that doubled as an entry permit and match access. In contrast, U.S. policy has left many international fans too frustrated to proceed with travel plans. “You’re supposed to be welcoming fans from around the world,” Thomas Concannon, leader of the FSA’s England supporters group, told BBC Sport earlier this year. “And I think at this stage, fans couldn’t feel less welcome.”
The next major test of U.S. policy will come this weekend, when the Iranian national team is scheduled to travel to the U.S. for its first group stage match. Iranian officials have already confirmed that U.S. authorities have denied visas to 16 key backroom staff members, and have only permitted the playing squad to enter the country via cross-border travel from Tijuana, Mexico, with a requirement to depart within 24 hours of each match. U.S. authorities have also revoked all pre-allocated group stage tickets for Iranian fans, a decision that has drawn widespread condemnation. This marks the first time in World Cup history that the host nation is actively engaged in military conflict with a participating nation, after the U.S. joined Israel in large-scale military strikes on Iran earlier this year.
As the tournament prepares to kick off, Powar says Artan’s case raises a fundamental question about who is actually in charge of the 2026 World Cup. “Never have we seen so many World Cup coaches, team operations, fans and even senior administrators within Fifa member associations, subject to so much interrogation and exclusion,” he said. “The disruption is such that one has to ask who is running the World Cup. Is it Fifa or is it the US government with its racially charged immigration policies?” Right now, with one of FIFA’s selected referees barred from entering the country, the answer seems clear: U.S. immigration policy is calling the shots.
-
Nasa names next astronauts for Artemis Moon programme
NASA has officially introduced the four-person crew for its long-awaited Artemis III mission, a mission whose scope has shifted dramatically from its original groundbreaking goal in the face of unexpected technical and infrastructure setbacks across its commercial partner network. Originally pitched as humanity’s first crewed lunar landing since NASA’s Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the 2027 flight was meant to see two astronauts touch down near the Moon’s permanently shadowed south pole to conduct a week of surface research.
In a major course correction announced in February this year, however, NASA redefined Artemis III as a low-Earth orbit test flight, operating only marginally farther from Earth than the International Space Station. Its new core objective will be to complete docking maneuvers with prototype lunar landers, a key procedural test that agency leaders say is critical before attempting a full landing attempt. Despite the scaled-back orbital profile, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman framed the mission as a historic engineering challenge, noting that it will demand unprecedented coordination between government teams and private spaceflight stakeholders for a series of heavy-lift rocket launches.
The agency has now named the full core crew: veteran NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik will command the mission, while Italian Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, who has accumulated more than 300 days of on-orbit experience across previous missions, will serve as pilot. Rounding out the core team are mission specialists Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio, both American astronauts. Experienced test pilot Bob Heintz, who has 170 days of spaceflight time under his belt, will act as backup, ready to step into any role on the crew if needed.
The major reshaping of Artemis III traces back to unresolvable delays in the development of SpaceX’s Starship, the craft selected to ferry astronauts from lunar orbit down to the Moon’s surface. A March 2026 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that SpaceX had only made limited progress in maturing two critical, untested technologies: in-orbit refueling and cryogenic propellant storage. Starship’s massive size means it cannot reach lunar orbit without being refueled in low-Earth orbit first, a process that requires multiple sequential fuel tanker launches to transfer super-cold liquid methane and liquid oxygen to the crew vehicle – a complex maneuver that has never been successfully demonstrated in space. Agency officials also concluded that jumping straight from Artemis II’s upcoming lunar flyby to a full landing would carry too much risk, making an Earth-orbit docking test a necessary intermediate step.
Worsening the program’s timeline pressures, the Artemis program suffered a second major setback in late May when a catastrophic explosion destroyed Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket during a routine hot-fire engine test. The blast left the launch pad extensively damaged, and no personnel were injured in the incident. Unlike SpaceX, which had alternate launch infrastructure after a 2016 explosion that kept it out of service for 15 months, Blue Origin has no backup pad for New Glenn launches, leaving the company facing months of potential downtime.
The damage has already created ripple effects across the entire Artemis schedule: the Blue Moon cargo lander, planned for a possible launch to the Moon as early as fall 2026, is now at high risk of missing its launch window. The crewed Blue Moon lander planned for Artemis IV faces major timeline uncertainty, and even the two prototype landers Artemis III is supposed to test are now facing scheduling questions.
In NASA’s most optimistic current projection, Artemis III will launch in 2027 as an orbital demonstration, followed by Artemis IV’s targeted lunar landing in early 2028, and Artemis V – which will carry out a second landing and begin construction of a lunar outpost – later that same year. While Blue Origin vice president John Couluris says the company and NASA are working around the clock to get back on track for a 2027 launch, most independent space analysts view that timeline as extremely aggressive.
Growing geopolitical competition adds extra urgency to NASA’s timeline: China has publicly targeted a 2030 crewed lunar landing, and a December 2025 executive order from former President Trump required NASA to return astronauts to the Moon by 2028 – the end of his current presidential term – and have initial base infrastructure in place by 2030. Many experts warn that the deck is stacked against NASA meeting its current goals. “It would not surprise me at all if China gets there first,” Dr. Simeon Barber, a lunar scientist at the Open University, told BBC News.
With untested refueling technology for Starship still undemonstrated and a key commercial partner left without a working launch pad, NASA’s path to a lunar landing now depends on a long chain of entirely unproven procedures all going exactly according to plan, leaving the agency with very little margin for error. Following the May explosion, Isaacman reaffirmed NASA’s commitment to supporting Blue Origin’s recovery efforts, but the critical open question remains: how long will recovery take, and can the already tight Artemis timeline absorb the delay?
-
Nasa has named the Artemis III crew – what is their mission?
Fifty-four years after the final Apollo 17 mission marked the last time humans walked on the lunar surface, NASA has announced the four-person crew for its upcoming Artemis III mission, a repurposed mission that represents a critical stepping stone to the first modern crewed lunar landing, currently scheduled for 2028.
Originally planned to make history as the first crewed lunar landing since the Apollo era, NASA revised the Artemis III mission framework in February 2026 after critical delays to the SpaceX Starship lunar lander, the vehicle contracted to carry astronauts down to the lunar surface. Development of the Starship has proceeded slower than expected, and the in-orbit refueling technology the lander depends on has never been successfully demonstrated. A March 2026 report from the US Government Accountability Office confirmed that SpaceX has only made “limited progress” on maturing this refueling technology, with the first demonstration test currently optimistically targeted for late 2026.
Rather than pushing the entire Artemis program timeline back further, agency leaders chose to reframe Artemis III as a full-scale crewed rehearsal that will validate key technologies and procedures ahead of the actual landing. Scheduled for launch no earlier than 2027 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the agency’s heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the mission will carry four astronauts inside the same Orion capsule that successfully completed the groundbreaking Artemis II lunar flyby in April 2026.
Unlike Artemis II, which saw the first humans travel beyond low Earth orbit since 1972 on a 10-day loop around the Moon, Artemis III will keep Orion in low Earth orbit at an altitude of roughly 290 miles – 40 miles higher than the International Space Station, equal to the distance between the British cities of Manchester and Edinburgh. There, the capsule will rendezvous and dock with prototype pathfinder lunar landers, allowing crew to test critical operational procedures. At least one crew member will enter the lander to verify hatch operations, life-support system connections, and test the new Axiom spacesuits that will be used for lunar surface extravehicular activity during subsequent landing missions.
These next-generation suits represent an unusual collaboration between aerospace and high fashion: Houston-based Axiom Space handled core engineering, adding a groundbreaking first-of-its-kind backup cooling loop to prevent overheating during 8-hour lunar surface spacewalks, while iconic Italian luxury brand Prada designed the inner garment that distributes chilled water evenly across an astronaut’s body.
The Artemis III crew will spend slightly more than nine days in orbit, one day longer than the Artemis II mission, before returning to Earth. Their re-entry will provide an opportunity to test an upgraded heat shield on Orion, collecting valuable performance data ahead of future deep space missions.
Following the successful completion of the Artemis III rehearsal, NASA plans to proceed with the Artemis IV mission in 2028, which will now be the first modern crewed lunar landing. That mission will see astronauts descend to the Moon’s south polar region, where permanently shadowed craters hold frozen water deposits that could one day be processed into drinking water, breathable oxygen, and rocket fuel to support long-term exploration. A second landing mission, Artemis V, is scheduled for late 2028, and will use a second lunar lander, Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mk2, developed by Jeff Bezos’ private aerospace firm.
The overarching goal of the entire Artemis program is to establish a long-term human outpost on the Moon, outlined by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in the May 2026 NASA Moon Base initiative. The three-phase plan calls for robotic survey missions and scientific instrument deliveries to the south pole before 2029, repeated crewed missions to expand the outpost starting in 2029, and semi-permanent habitats that support extended astronaut stays by the mid-2030s. A operational lunar base would enable continuous scientific research, test technologies for future crewed missions to Mars, allow for commercial lunar resource extraction, and help maintain U.S. leadership in the 21st century space race.
However, many space industry experts and analysts question whether NASA’s ambitious timeline can actually be met, even with the schedule adjustment. Beyond the ongoing delays to SpaceX’s Starship, the program suffered a major setback in May 2026 when Blue Origin’s only Cape Canaveral launch pad was heavily damaged by an explosion during a New Glenn rocket engine test. Unlike SpaceX, which has multiple launch pads across the United States, Blue Origin has no backup facility. Historical precedent from SpaceX’s 2016 launch pad loss suggests rebuilding will take at least 15 months, putting the delivery of the Blue Moon Mk2 lander for Artemis V in serious doubt.
“It would not surprise me at all if China gets [to the moon] first,” Dr. Simeon Barber of the Open University told the BBC, noting that lunar landers are the most technically complex component of any crewed landing mission, and development is largely out of NASA’s direct control.
The successful Artemis II mission earlier this year proved that NASA’s core Orion and SLS hardware works with a crew on board, but that has turned out to be the least challenging step of the modern lunar exploration effort. After Apollo 17 wrapped up in December 1972, public interest and political support for lunar exploration faded, along with federal funding, leaving the Moon unvisited by humans for more than half a century. Today, the United States is not the only nation pursuing crewed lunar landings: China has publicly targeted a 2030 landing, has already tested its Mengzhou capsule and Lanyue lander, and is developing the Long March 10 heavy-lift rocket. India, which successfully landed its uncrewed Chandrayaan-3 mission near the lunar south pole in 2023, has targeted a 2040 crew landing. Russia is partnering with China on a joint mid-2030s lunar base project, but sanctions, funding gaps, and technical challenges have put its contribution in question. While European and Japanese astronauts are expected to join future Artemis missions, there is currently no contractual guarantee of a seat for international partners on Artemis III.
-
Trump says Iran shot down US helicopter and vows to respond
In a sharp escalation of tensions between Washington and Tehran, former President Donald Trump has publicly blamed Iran for shooting down a U.S. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter operating near the Strait of Hormuz, pledging a U.S. military response would follow out of what he called “national necessity.”
Both crew members on board the downed aircraft survived the incident and were pulled from regional waters unharmed in a rescue operation led by an uncrewed American surface drone, senior U.S. military officials confirmed to the BBC. U.S. Central Command (Centcom), the U.S. military’s regional command overseeing operations across the Middle East, released a formal statement Tuesday confirming the pair of soldiers had been safely extracted roughly two hours after the helicopter went down off the coast of Oman during a routine maritime patrol.
“There were two pilots involved, both are safe and uninjured,” Trump wrote in a post Tuesday to his Truth Social platform. “Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”
The downing marks the first complete loss of a U.S. Apache helicopter since open conflict between the U.S. and Iran began, and it comes at a critical diplomatic juncture: just days prior, Trump stated that Washington was in “the final throes” of negotiating a new deal with Tehran to end the ongoing regional standoff.
Centcom’s official account of the incident confirmed the timeline, noting the rescue was completed at 19:33 EDT (23:33 GMT) Monday, with the operation led by U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the 82nd Airborne Division, backed by additional support from U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and 5th Fleet Task Force 59 units. A Centcom spokesperson later clarified that the actual recovery of the two crew members was carried out by an unmanned surface drone operated by Task Force 59, a Bahrain-based special unit launched in 2024 that specializes in integrating unmanned systems with human operators to strengthen maritime security across the Middle East.
Minutes ahead of Trump’s public statement on the incident, Iran’s top nuclear and diplomatic negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf posted a stark warning on his own social media channel, signaling Tehran’s rejection of any Western diplomatic coercion. “We prefer the language of diplomacy, but we speak other languages far more fluently,” Qalibaf wrote. “Break your commitments, and we’ll switch to what we speak best. You ride the horse you saddled!”
As of Tuesday, the White House has not released any details on what form a U.S. response to the incident could take, leaving regional allies and global markets bracing for further escalation in one of the world’s most critical energy transit chokepoints.