The iconic T-38 jets flown by astronauts just got a spiffy new look

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.” “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!” 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.