For the first time in decades, NASA has rolled out one of its iconic astronaut training aircraft with a bold, new look.
The space agency debuted a new livery on one of its T-38 jets in celebration of its program to return astronauts to the Moon. The Artemis design retains nods to what made the “white rocket” immediately recognizable, but adds a new colorway and painted graphics to make clear where NASA is headed.
“This new ‘Artemis’ livery has a black and white paint scheme with blue and red stripes that separate those two paint schemes,” said Sean Brady, who proposed and designed the new livery while serving as the T-38 project pilot in NASA’s Aircraft Operations Division (AOD), part of the Flight Operations Directorate at Johnson Space Center in Houston. “The Artemis program logo in the back and a picture of the Moon is on the left and right side of the rear fuselage.”
The Northrop T-38 “Talon” two-seat supersonic trainer has been in use by NASA since 1962, when the first jets were loaned to the agency by the US Air Force. Flown today to familiarize new astronauts with working in a high-stress, dynamic environment and maintain pilots’ flight proficiencies, Johnson Space Center currently has a fleet of 14 active T-38 jets stationed out of nearby Ellington Airport.
All but one is adorned with the classic blue stripe livery that has been associated with most of NASA’s aircraft over the past five decades.
“Shiny new toy”
The Artemis jet, referred to by NASA by its tail number N924NA (or 924 for short), stands out now due to its new look but was only selected because it was next in line to be repainted as part of AOD’s regular maintenance of its aircraft.
“Everyone wants to take that aircraft up now because it’s the new shiny ‘toy,’” said Brady, repeating the joke he’s heard around the office.
“It looks fantastic,” said Artemis III mission specialist Andre Douglas, describing a photo of him and NASA instructor pilot Andre Price posing with the aircraft that he shared on social media on August 20. “The jet paint job was a nice treat!”
Douglas and fellow NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik and Frank Rubio and European Space Agency pilot Luca Parmitano are targeted to launch on the Artemis III mission no earlier than June 2027 to test rendezvous and docking techniques with prototype lunar landers in Earth orbit.
If Artemis III goes according to plan, Artemis IV could see the first astronauts since the Apollo program land on the Moon as soon as 2028. From there, NASA is aiming at establishing a Moon base at the lunar south pole to search for and mine water ice and prepare astronauts for surface operations on Mars.
So nice, doing it twice
Brady proposed the special livery to better convey how the T-38 is connected to the Artemis program and its missions.
“A common question I get from the public is if the T-38 flies into space, and the answer is no. I think that’s an honest question. I think it’s a good question and a reasonable question because the parallels with spaceflight are not always obvious,” he said. “My goal in all this was to help that communication gap and tie T-38 flight training to NASA space missions and specifically to Artemis.”
Brady revealed that the plan currently is to roll out one other T-38 in a similar Artemis livery. What that other jet finally looks like is still being decided, but some of the ideas put forth by him and others have included changing the red and blue stripes to gold and silver accents and replacing the near-side view of the Moon featured on 924 with a depiction of the far side based on the photos taken by the Artemis II flyby in April.
Other aircraft in NASA’s fleet have also recently sported new designs, but only by coincidence, said Brady. NASA’s new Boeing 777 Airborne Science Laboratory (N577NA) and Boeing 737 reduced-gravity test aircraft (N837NA) debuted with fresh paint schemes. AOD’s WB-57 and Gulfstream V, as well as the T-38 fleet (with the exception of N924NA), also gained a logo mark in commemoration of the United States’ 250th anniversary.
The Artemis livery is the fifth design change for NASA’s T-38 astronaut trainers, which arrived from the Air Force with a mostly white fuselage (hence the nickname “white rocket”). In 1976, NASA adopted a standards graphic manual that introduced the logotype known as the “worm,” as well as the white and blue stripe livery for all of the agency’s aircraft.
In 1992, as part of a larger effort to retire the worm and restore use of the Apollo-era NASA insignia (also known as the “meatball”), a stylized vector design replaced the logotype on the tail. Then, in 2023, as NASA brought the worm out of retirement, the logo regained its place on the tail, and the insignia (meatball) was moved to the body under the cockpits.
