Artemis 3 Launch Date: When NASA Returns Astronauts to the Moon

Hakkı ALKAN

October 31, 2026

The Artemis 3 launch date is targeted for summer 2027, NASA said at an October 23, 2026 briefing at Kennedy Space Center, but the mission will not land on the Moon. Artemis III will send four astronauts into low Earth orbit for a 14-day test with lunar lander prototypes from Blue Origin and SpaceX, while Artemis IV is now the mission planned to put astronauts on the lunar surface in early 2028.

Here is what changed, who is flying and what still has to go right before people walk on the Moon again for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.

When Is the Artemis 3 Launch Date?

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the agency is on track to launch Artemis III next summer, meaning summer 2027. The briefing gave no exact day, because the mission depends on three launches lining up within days of each other from Florida. The crew launches in the Orion spacecraft on NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket from Kennedy Space Center.

Isaacman treats the date as close to non-negotiable. “Artemis III must fly,” he told Florida Today after the briefing, arguing that NASA needs data from the docking tests before it can commit hardware, training and procedures to the landing mission.

What Will Artemis III Actually Do?

Artemis III was originally meant to be the first landing. NASA has redefined it as a dress rehearsal in Earth orbit, and the NASA mission overview lays out the sequence:

• Blue Origin launches a test version of its Blue Moon Mark 2 lander into a circular orbit about 273 miles (440 km) above Earth. It can wait there for up to 30 days.
• Days later, Orion and its crew launch on SLS, dock beside the Blue Moon crew cabin, and the astronauts spend about two days inside it checking controls, air and pressure.
• SpaceX then launches a Starship Version 3 test article with a docking port on its nose into a slightly lower orbit.
• Orion docks nose to nose with Starship for up to two hours. The crew will not enter Starship on this flight.

The planned 14-day mission can stretch to about 17 days if weather delays a launch. NASA wants to test how Orion handles each lander as a docked pair, including communications, software and the forces involved in docking and undocking.

Who Is on the Artemis III Crew?

NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas will fly with ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano of Italy. ESA builds Orion’s European Service Module, and Parmitano is set to pilot the spacecraft. Rubio called the overall plan “incredibly ambitious” in an interview with the Associated Press, adding, “One thing I’ve always believed and learned is don’t bet against America.”

When Is the Next Moon Landing?

The next crewed Moon landing is Artemis IV, which NASA lists for early 2028. Four astronauts will fly Orion to lunar orbit, where two of them will move into a commercial lander and descend near the Moon’s South Pole. They are expected to spend about a week on the surface, with NASA targeting two moonwalks of roughly two hours each in new spacesuits from Axiom Space.

NASA has not yet chosen which lander will carry that first crew. Officials said the decision will depend on which company is ready first, with a second crewed landing to follow. Both companies must also fly an uncrewed demonstration of their crewed lander before astronauts ride it.

Starship vs. Blue Moon: Two Ways to Reach the Moon

To save time, NASA and both partners changed their plans, according to a NASA lander update. The landers will no longer meet Orion in the near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon that NASA planned earlier.

• SpaceX Starship: several tanker Starships will refuel a depot ship in Earth orbit, which then fuels the lander. Orion docks with the lander in Earth orbit, and Starship pushes the combined stack to the Moon.
• Blue Origin Blue Moon: the company is postponing in-space refueling. Three transfer stages, used like stages of a rocket, send the Mark 2 lander into an elliptical polar orbit around the Moon, where Orion meets it.

Starship is the bigger open question. It reached orbit for the first time only in September 2026, and SpaceX has yet to demonstrate the large-scale refueling in orbit that its lander depends on. Its next test, covered in our look at Starship Flight 15, will attempt to catch both stages with the launch tower.

Why NASA Is Rushing

Isaacman frames the schedule as a race with China, which aims to land its own astronauts on the Moon before 2030. He told reporters the new space race will be “much closer than it ever needed to be” because of slow progress in past years. NASA also points to the success of Artemis II, which flew four astronauts around the Moon in April 2026 and returned the images featured in our report on the Artemis II crew’s photos.

The program is also international. Dozens of countries have signed the Artemis Accords on peaceful Moon exploration, including Turkey, and Europe supplies Orion’s service module for every flight.

What Could Delay Artemis 3 and Artemis 4?

Several pieces must be ready at once. Isaacman said the lander gets most of the attention, but he is also watching Axiom’s lighter spacesuit and a stretched Centaur V upper stage from ULA with about 50% more propellant, which SLS needs to push Orion into a lower lunar orbit. Artemis III itself relies on New Glenn, SLS and Starship all launching within a short window.

For now, the realistic timeline is an Artemis 3 launch date in summer 2027 for the Earth orbit test, and early 2028 for Artemis IV, the first crewed lunar landing in more than 55 years. Any slip in the 2027 test is likely to push the landing back as well.