Put it in pencil: NASA’s Artemis III mission will launch no earlier than late 2027

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told lawmakers on Monday that SpaceX and Blue Origin, the agency’s two lunar lander contractors, say they could have their spacecraft ready for the next Artemis mission in Earth orbit in late 2027, somewhat later than NASA’s previous schedule.

This mission, Artemis III, will not fly to the Moon. Instead, NASA will launch an Orion capsule with a team of astronauts to rendezvous and potentially dock with one or both landers in Earth orbit. The details of the Artemis III flight plan remain under review, with key questions about the orbit’s altitude and the configuration of the Space Launch System rocket still unanswered.

A mission to low-Earth orbit, just a few hundred miles in altitude, may not require NASA to use up an SLS upper stage that is already built and in storage, saving the unit for the following Artemis mission to attempt a landing on the Moon. A launch into a higher orbit would require the upper stage, but it would allow NASA to perform tests in an environment more similar to the Moon. NASA is buying a new commercial upper stage, the Centaur V from United Launch Alliance, to pair with the SLS rocket after flying the last of the rocket’s existing upper stages.

Also in question is which of the landers—SpaceX’s Starship or Blue Origin’s Blue Moon—Artemis III will attempt to link to in space, or if NASA will try to incorporate both landers into the flight plan, assuming they are ready. Two months ago, Isaacman announced Artemis III would no longer land at the Moon’s south pole. The original Artemis III mission profile would have tried to accomplish too much. With that plan, the first time humans docked with and boarded a Starship or Blue Moon spacecraft would have been near the Moon, a quarter-million miles and several days away from Earth.

Instead, Artemis III will be a mission akin to Apollo 9, which tested the Apollo lunar lander in Earth orbit four months before Apollo 11’s historic landing at the Sea of Tranquility with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. If something goes wrong in Earth orbit, the Artemis III astronauts will be minutes or hours from home, not days.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman testifies during a House budget hearing at the Rayburn House Office Building on April 27, 2026, in Washington, DC.

Credit: Heather Diehl/Getty Images

18 months away?

All of the ambition wrapped up in NASA’s original plan for Artemis III also meant a long multiyear gap before the next launch of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft after the nearly flawless flight of the Artemis II mission earlier this month. The agency wants to fly Artemis missions at least once per year. When NASA revealed the revised Artemis III flight plan in February, officials suggested it might launch as soon as mid-2027, followed by up to two Artemis missions to the lunar surface in 2028, before China puts a crew on the Moon and before the end of President Donald Trump’s term in office.

Now, it’s looking more like late 2027, at the earliest, for Artemis III.

“I’ve received responses from both vendors, both SpaceX and Blue Origin, to meet our needs for a late 2027 rendezvous, docking, and test of the interoperability of both landers in advance of a landing attempt in 2028,” Isaacman said Monday.

Both companies have multibillion-dollar contracts to develop and deliver human-rated landers to NASA for use on Artemis missions. Both vehicles need to be refueled in space in order to fly to the Moon. This added complexity is not required for an Earth orbit mission.

“The taxpayers are making a very big investment to both SpaceX and Blue Origin’s Human Landing System (HLS) capability,” Isaacman said in a hearing before the subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee responsible for NASA’s budget. “I would also appreciate that both those companies are investing well in excess of that, as well.”

Starship and Blue Moon are each significantly larger than the Apollo lunar lander, and could eventually be refueled at the Moon for multiple trips between the lunar surface and crew and cargo freighters in orbit.

“It’s that capability that allows us not just to get back to the Moon, but really build the Moon base, put lots of mass, sufficiently and affordably, on the surface, not to mention every other application that comes from a rocket that you don’t have to throw away,” Isaacman said. “So we’re very grateful for that.”

There are steep challenges in getting Starship and Blue Moon ready for a human spaceflight mission. On Apollo 9, two astronauts took the lunar module for a test run, separating from the command module with the mission’s third crew member for more than six hours before reconnecting in low-Earth orbit. For a similar test on Artemis III, Starship or Blue Moon would require an advanced, independent life support system, human-rated engines, a cockpit and flight controls, and a docking mechanism. SpaceX and Blue Origin have released few details of where those systems are in development and production.

This artist’s rendering shows NASA’s Orion spacecraft docked with SpaceX’s Starship lunar lander near the Moon.

Credit: NASA/SpaceX

It’s possible NASA could go for a less ambitious Artemis III mission, with a rendezvous and docking but no independent crewed flight of the lunar lander. NASA’s leaders must decide on these options in the coming months, and their thinking will be informed by how quickly and successfully SpaceX moves forward with flying the next-generation Starship Version 3 rocket and Blue Origin’s planned uncrewed landing near the Moon’s south pole with the Blue Moon cargo lander.