NASA reshapes Artemis III, delays first lunar landing to 2028

NASA has rewritten Artemis III into a test flight instead of a landing attempt, pushing the agency’s first crewed return to the Moon’s surface to early 2028 and placing commercial lander readiness at the center of the schedule.

Under the revised plan, Artemis III will launch astronauts in Orion atop the Space Launch System rocket for a low-Earth-orbit mission that tests rendezvous and docking with one or both commercial lunar landers. NASA said it will announce the specific mission design and crew closer to the 2027 launch, a sign that the hardware and staffing decisions are still being locked down as the program moves from ambition to execution.

The change also redraws the mission map beyond Artemis III. NASA added a new mission in 2027 and said it now aims for at least one surface landing every year after that. Artemis IV is expected to take astronauts to the lunar South Pole region, while the first Artemis lunar landing is now targeted for early 2028. NASA said the new architecture is meant to improve safety and standardize the vehicle configuration while it focuses on Artemis II.

That mission remains the next major milestone. Artemis II is scheduled for April 1, 2026, as a 10-day crewed lunar flyby carrying Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. NASA has described Artemis I, completed in November 2022, as the uncrewed test flight that opened the program’s current phase. Together, the missions are meant to build a long-term presence at the Moon and prepare for future Mars missions.

The pressure point remains the human landing system. NASA’s current plan assigns SpaceX to Artemis III and Artemis IV, while Blue Origin is assigned Artemis V, but the agency has also said the lander readiness will determine which provider safely carries astronauts from lunar orbit to the Moon’s surface and back on the landing mission. With SpaceX and Blue Origin telling NASA their landers should be ready for Artemis III in late 2027, the new plan reads as both a safeguard and a warning: the Moon mission is moving forward, but the calendar is still being rewritten around the pace of contractor delivery.