Assumption Management in Complex Human Spaceflight: The Artemis Campaign

This paper argues that assumption management should be treated as a formal safety and systems discipline in complex human spaceflight programs, particularly within the Artemis Exploration Campaign. Artemis is not a single vehicle program in the mold of Apollo or Shuttle. It is a distributed campaign architecture composed of government systems, commercial providers, international partners, evolving infrastructure, shifting policy direction, and mission sequences that depend on capabilities maturing across different organizations and timelines. In that environment, assumptions are not background planning conveniences. They are functional system elements. They shape architecture, verification, operations, safety confidence, and ultimately the conditions under which crews are asked to fly.