Three of the world’s most powerful rockets, launched one after another, and not a single one headed for the Moon. That is the plan for Artemis III in 2027, which NASA has recast as a rehearsal in Earth orbit rather than a landing.
The idea is simple enough. Orion, carrying astronauts, will meet and dock with a prototype lander from Blue Origin, then with another from SpaceX. Crews in space and controllers on the ground will practise the manoeuvres that later missions will depend on. Crewed landings are slated to begin in 2028, and NASA says what it learns here, along with data from uncrewed demonstration flights near the Moon, should cut the risk for those crews.
Two landers, two approaches
NASA has partnered with both companies to build human landing systems that can carry astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface and back. For Artemis III each will fly a test article. Commercial rockets will lift the prototypes, while the crew rides Orion into low Earth orbit on NASA’s Space Launch System.
The two firms have not chosen the same path. SpaceX plans to fly Starship Version 3, its newest design, which is still being built and tested. A docking system will go on the nose of the 171-foot (52-m) vehicle. Blue Origin will fly a Blue Moon lander built on its current Mark 2 crew lander architecture, with major avionics, flight software and control systems included.
“Each human landing system provider has taken a different approach to the Artemis III mission,” said Steve Creech, program manager of the Human Landing System Program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He added that both companies had put forward “aggressive objectives and goals” meant to complement the uncrewed missions, and that the prototype designs would keep maturing over the next year.
Who goes inside what
Only the Blue Origin craft will take visitors. Up to two astronauts, wearing orange Orion crew survival system suits, will open the hatch and enter. The cabin should resemble the final crewed version, with an Environmental Control and Life Support System, a crew cabin and avionics. It will also carry an instrumented spacesuit mass simulator, a cousin of the “Moonikin” manikin that flew on Orion during Artemis I, to send back live readings on cabin conditions.
The Starship test is stricter. The astronauts stay in Orion and do not enter the SpaceX prototype.
The launch sequence
Blue Origin goes first. Its lander can stay in orbit for as long as 30 days, so teams will have time to inspect it in a designated parking orbit before SLS and Orion leave Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Once the Blue Origin docking tests are finished and the crew is airborne, SpaceX sends up Starship for the second round.
Orion will dock to the side of Blue Moon, near its crew cabin. With Starship, the connection is nose to nose. In each case the lander acts as the target and Orion as the chaser, the same arrangement NASA intends for crewed lunar missions. Orion’s software will run the combined spacecraft after the Blue Moon docking; during the Starship phase, the SpaceX vehicle takes control.
Jeremy Parsons, the Artemis program manager, called it “a highly choreographed dance with a demanding launch sequence across multiple launch pads.” The tight schedule will also test launch crews, ground processing, control centers, communications networks and data sharing at several sites across the United States. It previews what NASA calls a “dual launch campaign,” in which a lander goes up first and waits in orbit for the crew.
Before any of this starts, NASA will check that both test articles are ready and safe for a crewed Orion to approach, reviewing performance requirements and hazard controls. Both companies have already done ground testing of their docking hardware: SpaceX qualified its docking capability in 2023, and Blue Origin ran developmental ground tests of its pressurized docking system earlier this year. When it is over, the crew returns on Orion and splashes down.
