NASA’s revised plan makes Artemis III an orbital rendezvous and docking test with Orion and test landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin. The agency planned the demonstration for 2027, after announcing the change on October 23, 2026. Artemis III is not the lunar landing mission: NASA’s crewed landing target is 2028.
What Artemis III is designed to test
Artemis III is planned to test how Orion meets and docks with lander test vehicles in low Earth orbit, the region relatively close to Earth. A rendezvous is a planned meeting between spacecraft; docking connects them. NASA says both providers must also complete uncrewed demonstrations, and the agency will certify their lander systems before crewed lunar flights.
The change gives Artemis III an orbital test role while NASA continues to develop two distinct routes to the Moon. The announced plan does not assign either provider to a particular lunar landing mission.
How SpaceX and Blue Origin plan to reach the Moon
NASA’s concepts differ in how they move propellant and hardware from Earth orbit toward the Moon. SpaceX’s plan uses multiple tanker Starships and an orbital depot; Blue Origin’s accelerated concept uses three transfer stages with Blue Moon Mark 2 Alpha.
| Provider | Propellant and transfer approach | Orion rendezvous and lunar route | Added development milestones |
| SpaceX | Multiple Starship tankers transfer cryogenic propellant, which is kept extremely cold, to a depot in low Earth orbit. The depot fuels Starship HLS. | Starship HLS meets Orion in Earth orbit, then makes a trans-lunar injection burn with Orion attached to head toward low lunar orbit. | Two Cabin 1 crew-cabin demonstrations. |
| Blue Origin | The accelerated concept uses three transfer stages with Blue Moon Mark 2 Alpha; the stages separate as their propellant is depleted. | The vehicles head toward an elliptical polar lunar orbit. Two crew members are planned to descend to the lunar South Pole and return to Orion. | Human-in-the-loop testing, which involves people in the test process, and hardware-readiness milestones. |
In NASA’s SpaceX concept, the depot-and-tanker sequence supplies the propellant for Starship HLS before its trip with Orion. The trans-lunar injection is the burn that sends the joined spacecraft from Earth orbit toward the Moon. Blue Origin’s plan instead relies on three transfer stages, with each separating as its propellant runs out. Both descriptions are future mission concepts.
NASA’s description of the Blue Origin lunar mission has two crew members descend to the lunar South Pole and return to Orion. In the SpaceX concept, two crew members are also planned to descend to the surface for several days and then return to Orion.
How many Starship tanker launches might be needed?
At a NASA event on October 23, 2026, Artemis program manager Jeremy Parsons said six to eight launches was probably closer to SpaceX’s planning estimate than 22. He said a propellant-transfer demonstration would help determine the number more reliably, so six to eight remains a planning estimate rather than a settled mission requirement.
An NBC News interview with Parsons also discusses the revised architecture, propellant transfer and launch estimates.
NASA’s 2028 lunar-landing target
NASA targets a crewed lunar landing in 2028 and says the first provider will be selected based on readiness. Neither SpaceX nor Blue Origin has been assigned a specific lunar landing mission under the revised contract alignment; NASA plans a second crewed landing opportunity to follow the first.
For initial lunar surface missions, NASA targets two moonwalks of about two hours each to collect samples and test spacesuit capabilities. Axiom Space supplies the spacesuit referenced in NASA’s plan.
