“This is an achievable path we are on right now,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said at a Friday news conference where the agency laid out, in detail, how it intends to put astronauts back on the Moon as soon as 2028. “We have the mandate, we have the resources, and the support from our stakeholders to be able to execute, and that’s what we intend to do.”
The strategic question is which lander gets the job. NASA has two in the running, SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon, and neither has yet flown the demonstrations that would qualify it.
Artemis III becomes a rehearsal
Steve Creech, acting manager of NASA’s Human Landing System Program, presented development timelines for both vehicles on Oct. 5 at the International Astronautical Congress in Antalya, Türkiye. Key demonstrations run through early 2028, among them orbital refueling and uncrewed lunar landings.
The mission that arrives first is Artemis III, targeted for the third quarter of 2027. Four astronauts will fly in Orion to low Earth orbit and dock with test versions of both landers. The results feed NASA’s choice of which vehicle carries crews down to the surface on Artemis IV, targeted for early 2028. Artemis III was once planned as the first crewed landing. When NASA overhauled the program architecture in February, it moved the mission up a year and gave it the lander tests instead, shifting the landing to Artemis IV. The agency’s goal of landing astronauts by the end of 2028 stayed in place.
One change in the revised plan: for Starship, Orion would dock with the lander in high Earth orbit before heading to the Moon. For Blue Origin, the architecture calls for four New Glenn launches and no refueling between spacecraft, and leaves open a rendezvous with Orion in low lunar orbit. Ars Technica reported that SpaceX’s biggest request in early 2026 meetings was dropping the requirement to dock in a near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon, which demanded more energy. Canceling the Lunar Gateway earlier this year removed it.
SpaceX’s checklist
Starship’s latest test flight flew Sept. 28 from Starbase in South Texas. NASA’s list of goals for 2026 includes the first catch of an upgraded Version 3 booster at the pad, the first catch of a Ship upper stage, the first Starship launch from a Florida pad still under construction, and possibly a V3 booster reflight. NASA also expects the initial build of the lunar variant’s crew cabin to finish by year’s end. SpaceX has shown renders of the interior and photos of a test elevator astronauts use to train for climbing down on the Moon, but little else.
For Artemis III, SpaceX plans a modified V3 upper stage with a docking system and nosecone cover, and no crew cabin to enter. NASA documents suggest it has already passed mechanical fit checks. The harder test is propellant transfer in orbit. Starship’s tanks must be topped off to go beyond low Earth orbit, and a landing mission could take up to a dozen tanker launches to a fuel depot. SpaceX has to prove it can move cryogenic fuel and keep boil-off in check. An uncrewed lunar-lander variant is targeted for late Q3 or early Q4 of 2027, with an uncrewed landing before the year ends.
Blue Origin’s checklist
Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 2 stands 52 feet (16 meters) tall and runs on three BE-7 engines. The company intends to fly a finished test vehicle on Artemis III, with a crew cabin and partial life support, so astronauts can float inside and try some systems in zero-g.
The schedule has a problem at the pad. A New Glenn exploded in May and heavily damaged Launch Complex-36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. NASA’s presentation shows the pad and rocket returning to flight in Q4 2026, a date Blue Origin has defended loudly. A Reuters report suggested it may slip to early 2027.
Blue Origin’s smaller Blue Moon MK1 is due to launch in Q1 2027 under NASA’s robotic Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. An uncrewed MK2 landing attempt is expected in Q1 2028. SpaceX is aiming for Q4 2027 and Blue Origin for Q1 2028 on their uncrewed landings, which leaves little margin before Artemis IV.
Sources
- When will SpaceX and Blue Origin fly to the moon? NASA reveals lunar lander timelines (and an Artemis III update)
- NASA updates lander plans for Moon landings, finally solves long-festering Orion issue
