The latest mission patch for the next flight to the Moon has been released, and I’m glad to say I had the honor of designing it.

Having put out the word to several previous astronaut friends that I was available to work on the next mission patch, the Artemis crew contacted me almost two years ago to start designing while they were in training for the mission. We spent months and months, between our busy schedules, examining sketches and trying to pin down just what elements should be in the design, what they wanted to express, and how it fit into their mission.

The astronauts brought us all together for a handful of precious moments and for the briefest time, we were all just…human.

It is entirely fun to discover you’re on a Zoom call with a whole team of astronauts, joking about art, flying, rockets, and life! These are generous people and surprising at times. Like when one of the crew members once called me from the ISS on a Saturday afternoon…just to chat.

Artemis is a very special mission. It will be the first time in decades that we will return to the Moon, in preparation for the next crew to actually touch down again. The Artemis SLS (Space Launch System) will be the most powerful rocket ever successfully launched, blasting them away from Earth’s pull with a combination of rocket engines and solid rocket boosters, developing 8.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. (The Saturn V rocket for the Moon missions created 7.5 million pounds and is still one of the greatest engineering feats of our species.) That is a staggering amount of energy, (more power than 85 Hoover Dams) but NASA is designing for even greater thrust for the next Moon mission.

I started with a couple dozen initial thumbnails of possible designs which I shared with the crew to get feedback. I’d listened to their thoughts about what they wanted to represent in the design. They wanted to reference the initial Artemis logo, designed by NASA for the overall missions, by keeping the A and the swoosh, in particular.

They liked my idea of showing the Moon dramatically and wanted to build on that idea by harkening back to the original Apollo 8 mission which captured an Earth-rise over the Moon. So I designed the Earth in the patch to match the cloud patterns from the original photograph.

Because this is the second flight in the Artemis program, they liked the idea that the 2 of the mission be expressed as numerals so that when viewed will look similar to “All” and reminds us that they are indeed doing this for the benefit of everyone on our home planet. 

That idea is something I can easily get behind. When I was a kid watching us land on the Moon for the first time, I was touched as it held everyone’s attention. It stopped what people were doing to watch. The astronauts brought us all together for a handful of precious moments and for the briefest time, we were all just…human.

There and Back Again

Working on this particular design gave the mission a feeling like one of the great adventure stories of the past, of venturing into the unknown. Appropriately, NASA made the official announcement by revealing the patch…enlarged and projected 60’ high on the side of the Vertical Assembly Building!

The launch is scheduled for April of 2026, and Irene Gallo and I plan to be at the cape to watch them liftoff. I’m told it should be amazing and rather loud. If it’s anything even close to the Dragon rocket launches we’ve seen, a couple seconds after a silent blastoff, we’ll get pushed back by the fury of the wind and crackling sound catching up to us, thrusting my friends in a graceful arc upward, a tiny orange dot headed for the Moon.

When you know someone onboard, it makes the endeavor seem that much riskier, that much more dangerous. That’s why I’ll be screaming and cheering them on, eyes likely teared up, along with everyone else watching the dramatic exit, wishing them a smooth journey there and back again.

I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of it.