Artemis III, scheduled for 2027, is complex. It requires coordinated launches from teams of three mission controllers. Nasa will fly the astronauts; SpaceX and Blue Origin will launch their vehicles. The three spacecraft will meet in low-Earth orbit. At the June unveiling of the Artemis III crew, Jeremy Parsons, the Artemis programme manager, explained that Blue Origin’s lander Blue Moon would launch first and remain in space for up to 90 days.
During that time, Nasa will fly its Orion spacecraft with the Artemis III crew on board, atop the Space Launch System rocket. Orion and Blue Moon will spend about two days docked to each other. The crew will transfer to Blue Moon to test electronics and life-support systems.
SpaceX’s Starship vehicle will lift off next. Orion will dock to Starship for about a day but the crew will not enter. Instead, Nasa will test other controls and collect data for future Artemis missions, when Starship’s engines may thrust Orion toward the moon.
According to Parsons, the mission will last about two weeks. The astronauts will return home via splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
How ready are SpaceX
and Blue Origin?
SpaceX and Blue Origin need working versions of their lunar landers. They also need to be able to get those vehicles into space.
For Artemis III, SpaceX will not be launching a prototype of its Starship lander. At the event, Jessica Jensen, a SpaceX executive, explained that the company will instead use one of its Starship vehicles, currently being built for other missions, with a docking port attached.
SpaceX aims to fly the vehicle on a new iteration of the Starship rocket, known as Version 3. It debuted in a mostly successful test in May. Days later, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded SpaceX’s rocket because of engine failures during the flight. SpaceX is required to complete an investigation into the mishap before launching again. This could affect its ability to perform enough test flights before Artemis III.
John Couluris, an executive at Blue Origin, said the company expected its Blue Moon lander to be ready for an Artemis III launch in 2027. For some, Blue Moon — to be launched on Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket — seemed a surefire bet for Artemis III. But at the end of May, New Glenn exploded during a test, damaging the only launchpad Blue Origin has available to fly this rocket.
Experts say repairing the launchpad — or constructing another — could take months, if not longer. Dave Limp, Blue Origin’s CEO, said in a social media post that New Glenn would fly again by the end of the year.
Despite the setbacks, Nasa administrator Jared Isaacman remained confident that both companies would be ready by mid-2027. Nasa is also exploring the option of flying Blue Moon on a different rocket, he said, “if that’s what’s necessary to maintain our timelines”.
How is Nasa preparing?
Nasa engineers need to refurbish the mobile launcher — a movable platform that the Space Launch System rocket sits on for launch — from damage that occurred during the Artemis II mission in April. Then they will meticulously assemble the rocket, piece by piece, from the ground up in a process known as stacking.
Isaacman said that stacking would begin in a couple of weeks. It took about 11 months to finish stacking the Space Launch System, with Orion on top, for Artemis II.
In an interview with Ars Technica, Parsons said that Nasa would perform a “wet dress rehearsal” of the partly stacked rocket this fall, when specialists will pump propellants into the rocket’s tanks to work out issues with the launch.
Nasa also has other milestones to accomplish, such as installing Orion’s new heat shield, which protects the spacecraft from searing temperatures during its return to Earth. It also needs to ready its astronauts.
What happens after?
For Nasa to attempt to land astronauts on the moon in 2028, both Blue Origin and SpaceX need to finalise their lunar landers and demonstrate safe, uncrewed landings on the moon’s surface using these landers.
For Blue Origin, that means recovering its launchpad as quickly as possible. SpaceX has an additional hurdle. Because the Starship rocket is so big and heavy, it can reach only low-Earth orbit before running out of fuel. It will need to be refuelled in space before heading to the moon, a process SpaceX has yet to demonstrate.
According to Isaacman, uncrewed Moon landings by SpaceX and Blue Origin would ideally occur in 2027, sometime after Artemis III. That commits Nasa to a relatively fast turnaround to analyse those demos and make any changes necessary for a crewed landing in 2028.
Clayton Swope, the deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project, said that optimism regarding the Artemis programme is “wonderful” to have but also that “it is good to really have a reality check of what things are feasible and when”. Swope is sceptical that Nasa can perform a crewed landing by 2028 but says the US can beat China to the moon by the end of the decade. He cautioned against unrealistic schedules.