Space News Deep Dive: The Updated Artemis III

Article June 13, 2026
The crew of Artemis III: mission specialist Andre Douglas, pilot Luca Parmitano, commander Randy Bresnik, and mission specialist Frank Rubio. Credit: NASA
The crew of Artemis III: mission specialist Andre Douglas, pilot Luca Parmitano, commander Randy Bresnik, and mission specialist Frank Rubio. Credit: NASA

This week the names of the astronauts who will crew the next flight in Project Artemis, Artemis III, were revealed. There’s been a lot of coverage of that crew and its makeup. Yes, I absolutely have feelings about the fact that all four crewmembers plus their backup crewmember are men, but in the interest of focusing on the parts of spaceflight that make me happy (and because the other thing is being very thoroughly covered elsewhere), I’m going to focus this post on the other Artemis III news that was revealed on Tuesday. 

Specifically, a major update was made to the mission profile, and it involves the  lunar landers currently under development by the private companies SpaceX and Blue Origin, Starship and the Blue Moon Mark 2. So which of them exactly is going to space with Artemis III? Well…everybody, apparently. This is shaping up to be an incredibly complex mission, so let’s do a deep dive into what we learned this week.

 

Next Steps

Some quick background first. Artemis III was originally supposed to be a 2028 Moon landing attempt, but back in February NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said out loud what everyone was thinking quietly. Namely that going from the Artemis II mission profile directly to a landing attempt was a Bad Idea that would involve dealing with untested mission-critical equipment (the landers and spacesuits) in a hostile environment (lunar orbit) several days away from the safety of Earth.

Artist illustration comparing the Blue Moon and Starship lunar landers to the Apollo Lunar Module. Credit: NASA OIG
Artist illustration comparing the Blue Moon and Starship lunar landers to the Apollo Lunar Module. Credit: NASA OIG

Not to mention that would put a large time gap between Artemis launches, which doesn’t help everyone involved with flight support stay on their toes. And if there’s one place you’d like to have everyone on their toes, it’s while trying to land on the Moon.

So back in February Isaacman announced a big switch-up. Artemis III would instead launch in 2027 and would stay in Earth orbit to perform the first docking of the Orion crew capsule with a lunar lander, either Starship or Blue Moon. Technically Starship was on the docket to be the first lunar lander to carry humans back to the lunar surface as part of Project Artemis, with Blue Moon getting some of the later landings. However, given the testing delays Starship has faced, NASA was not going to say no if Blue Moon turned out to be ready sooner. Which of them would be a part of the Artemis III mission seemed, at the time, entirely a question of which could get to space faster.

Now it turns out everyone is invited to the party!

 

Landers Galore!

One of the big announcements that got somewhat overshadowed by the naming of the crew was the fact that both Blue Moon and Starship are going to space as part of Artemis III. There will be three launches on this mission. The first will be Blue Moon, followed by the crew itself. Blue Moon and Orion will rendezvous in orbit, dock, and remain docked for two days, during which the crew will perform operations within Blue Moon itself.

Artist’s illustration of starship docking with the Orion crew capsule. Credit: SpaceX
Artist’s illustration of starship docking with the Orion crew capsule. Credit: SpaceX

After those two days Blue Moon will undock from Orion and go away. At some point Starship will launch. I’m not yet clear enough on the timeline to be able to say whether Starship will launch before Blue Moon (presumably) reenters the atmosphere and burns up, but it’s possible that all three spacecraft will be aloft and active at the same time which is…a lot.

Orion will spend one day connected to Starship during which they will conduct “joint operations” before undocking and preparing for splashdown in the Pacific. The whole mission is schedule to take two weeks, with Isaacman planning on having a readiness date for launch “no earlier than this time next year”. I interpret that to mean they’ll have a launch date picked out, not that the launch will happen no earlier than this time next year, but I could be misconstruing that. Either way would suit NASA’s original stated timeline of “mid-2027” for a launch.

So huzzah, everything is hunky-dory, right? Ha, please, when is it ever?

 

Looking Blue

Ooh boy are there stumbling blocks. Let’s start with the readiness of the landers. NASA wants to launch next year. When it comes to spacecraft development, that’s really not long at all, and no crew-ready versions of Starship or Blue Moon exist yet.

The Blue Moon Mark 1 ship Endurance recently completed thermal testing at NASA facilities. Credit: NASA
The Blue Moon Mark 1 ship Endurance recently completed thermal testing at NASA facilities. Credit: NASA

A non-human-rated version of Blue Moon, the Mark 1 version, exists and has been undergoing testing at NASA facilities. It just finished thermal chamber testing. This spacecraft, dubbed Endurance, was meant to launch this year carrying various sensors and experiments and attempt a landing at the lunar south pole. Mark 1 was always intended to be a cargo craft only.

As far as I am aware, there is no Mark 2 version (the human-carrying kind) that exists. There is, however, a mockup of its interior that astronauts can train on. But the ship itself is still a dream. One presumes there must be at least one Mark 2 somewhere in the assembly process, but I’ve not seen hide nor hair of it (then again, we got almost no glimpses of the New Glenn rocket prior to its full unveiling, so it could just be par for the course for Blue Origin).

Never gonna get tired of this picture of New Glenn epically exploding. Credit: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now
Never gonna get tired of this picture of New Glenn epically exploding. Credit: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now

Of course, even if a fully-built, human-rated, 100% ready-to-go Blue Moon Mark 2 was ready to fly today, there’s still the little problem of it needing a ride. Blue Moon is designed to fly on the New Glenn. And New Glenn, you might have noticed, is not going anywhere for a good long while following the “anomaly” of May 28th when a fully-fueled New Glenn undergoing a pre-launch test erupted in the largest explosion ever seen at Cape Canaveral.

Not only is the rocket itself grounded until the investigation of the source of the explosion is fully complete, but at the moment it doesn’t have a place to launch from. The launchpad was badly damaged in the blast, and it’s currently the only orbital pad Blue Origin has. Simply putting New Glenn on a different pad isn’t an option, as different rockets use different support structures.

That means Blue Origin has to pull off a heroic rebuild of the blown pad or rapidly build another (it had already started construction on a second pad before the explosion but it’s early days) while also hoping and praying for a rapid conclusion to the investigation into the source of the explosion…or it has to stick Blue Moon on a different rocket. Which it’s not designed for. So Blue Origin has some decisions ahead of it.

 

Seeing Stars

Starship, of course, has been very publicly undergoing a series of test flights for years. It has not yet achieved a full orbital flight, though it has achieved partial orbit several times. It has many testing steps left to achieve, and that’s with versions of Starship that are not human-rated (things are a lot easier to build when you don’t have to worry about things like life support).

The SpaceX Starship on one of its test launches. Credit: SpaceX
The SpaceX Starship on one of its test launches. Credit: SpaceX

A mockup of the inside of a human-rated Starship for astronaut training also does not yet exist, so far as we’ve been told. It was notable that, in the press conference announcing these updates, NASA specifically mentioned performing operations inside of Blue Moon while it’s docked with Orion, but made no such statement about Starship. It’s entirely possible, therefore, that NASA is expecting this mission to take place without a human-ready version of this lander.

That’s if they’re done at all. NASA has, thus far, been reluctant about moving away from “mid 2027” for Artemis III. But both Blue Origin and SpaceX are on record as saying their landers will be ready no earlier than late 2027. Isaacman has stated that Artemis III will not fly before the landers are ready (both landers, it seemed implied), so probably we’re looking at late 2027 at best, and that’s assuming all goes well from here on out which feels like a sucker’s bet.

There’s also questions about whether the new lunar spacesuits, which are also meant to be tested during Artemis III, can be ready for late 2027, but I feel like I’ve dwelled long enough on the stumbling blocks

 

Eyes on the Prize

Artist’s illustration of both Blue Origin and SpaceX hardware supporting lunar landings for Artemis IV, V, and VI. Credit: NASA
Artist’s illustration of both Blue Origin and SpaceX hardware supporting lunar landings for Artemis IV, V, and VI. Credit: NASA

I have no doubt that Artemis III will fly. Artemis II did, after all, despite years of delays, and did magnificent things. Artemis III and its crew will do the same. Maybe not in 2027, but it will happen. And then the doorway will be open for the mission we’re all waiting for: Artemis IV and the return of humans to the surface of the Moon.

If you keep your eyes firmly on that prize, then the stumbles along the way seem like minor annoyances. We’re going back to the Moon, come hell, high water, or rocket anomalies. And that, in case you need reminding, is awesome.