NASA is moving fast on its plans to build a moon base and return astronauts to the lunar surface in as little as two years. Administrator Jared Isaacman said Friday that the space agency is on track to launch Artemis III next summer. The two-week mission by a crew of four will serve as a docking exercise for Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos’ lunar landers. It will be confined to orbit around Earth — no moon trip this time. Isaacman says the all-important Artemis IV mission remains scheduled for 2028. NASA’s update comes six months after the successful Artemis II flight around the moon by four astronauts.

A Japanese spacecraft is rocketing toward Mars on an unprecedented quest to explore its mysterious moons and bring back samples. Japan launched it before dawn Tuesday from the country's main spaceport. Five of the world's space agencies have joined forces for the five-year mission that will attempt to land a robotic prospector plus a rover on Phobos, the larger of Mars' two moons. While NASA and China have successfully landed spacecraft on Mars, no one has ever ventured onto Phobos or its sidekick Deimos and no one has managed to fetch samples. If successful, Martian lunar soil and small rocks will arrive at Earth in 2031.