The Artemis Program Explained

Artemis III in 2027: Testing the Moon Landers in Orbit

Based on NASA's mission overview published October 23, 2026, plus NASA updates reported in July and August 2026. Schedules change; confirm against NASA's own mission pages.

Artemis III is planned for 2027, and it will not land on the Moon. Four astronauts will spend about 14 days in Earth orbit aboard Orion to test how NASA's spacecraft work with the commercial landers that will later carry crews to the lunar surface. NASA program manager Jeremy Parsons describes it as launching three spacecraft on three different rockets and testing how they operate together, something NASA has never attempted. The crew is NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas, with Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency.

The sequence starts with Blue Origin launching a test version of its Blue Moon Mark 2 lander into a circular orbit about 273 miles up, where it can stay for up to 30 days. Only days later, once the lander is confirmed healthy, the Space Launch System lifts Orion from Kennedy Space Center. Orion first reaches an elliptical orbit, then uses its service module to settle into a roughly 345-mile circular orbit. After two days of system checks, the crew docks with Blue Moon and spends about two days inside, evaluating the cabin environment, controls and life support. It is NASA's first test of a commercial lunar lander with people aboard.

Later in the mission, SpaceX launches a Starship Version 3 test vehicle from Florida with an added forward docking system. Orion docks with its nose for a test lasting up to two hours, checking controllability, communications, software and docking and undocking dynamics. The crew does not enter Starship. The two dockings use different geometries: one to a port beside Blue Moon's crew cabin and one to Starship's nose.

After the docking tests, Orion has up to five more days in orbit for extra work: Orion Crew Survival System suit evaluations, docking sensor tests, acoustic and thermal measurements, human-factors studies, a cellular biology experiment, lunar sample return concepts, and a trial of health assessments without direct contact with mission control. Orion then returns to a Pacific Ocean splashdown off California, where NASA and the U.S. Navy recover the crew.

Why it matters: Artemis II flew around the Moon in April 2026. Artemis III is the bridge to the first landing, which NASA says will come in 2028. At Kennedy in August, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said he is "extremely confident" about a 2027 launch. As of NASA's July update the core stage was delivered, two of four engines had arrived, and Orion's upgraded heat shield was installed. Read more in Artemis III.

Why NASA Created Artemis

No human had walked on the Moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972. In the decades between, NASA built deep experience in exactly the things Apollo never had to solve: living in space for months at a time (Skylab, Mir cooperation, and the International Space Station), flying a reusable winged spacecraft (the Space Shuttle), and coordinating large, multinational engineering programs. Artemis exists to combine that accumulated experience with new technology and go back — this time to stay, not just to visit. See Before Artemis: How NASA Returned to the Moon for the full chain of programs that made it possible.

Artemis Compared With Apollo

Apollo was built to win a specific race to the Moon and back, using a spacecraft and rocket designed for that single purpose. Artemis is built around sustainability: Orion and the Space Launch System are designed to fly repeatedly over years, not once. Where Apollo's landing sites were chosen mainly for safety and equatorial accessibility, Artemis specifically targets the lunar South Pole, where permanently shadowed craters are believed to hold water ice — a resource future missions could eventually use rather than hauling everything from Earth.

The Core Hardware: Orion, SLS, and Human Landing Systems

Three major systems carry astronauts through an Artemis mission. Orion is the crew capsule that carries astronauts from Earth, through deep space, and back through reentry. The Space Launch System (SLS) is the heavy-lift rocket that gets Orion out of Earth's gravity well and on a path toward the Moon. A separate Human Landing System (HLS) — developed commercially, not by NASA itself — is what will actually carry astronauts down to the lunar surface and back up to lunar orbit, since Orion itself is not designed to land.

Gateway and International/Commercial Partnerships

Artemis is not a NASA-only program. The Artemis Accords establish shared principles for peaceful lunar exploration among partner nations, and commercial companies are developing key hardware, including the Human Landing Systems. Gateway, a small space station planned to orbit the Moon, is intended as a long-term staging point for lunar surface missions and a proving ground for the systems a future Mars mission would need.

The Missions So Far, and What's Ahead

Artemis I flew uncrewed in November–December 2022, testing the integrated Orion/SLS/ ground-systems architecture on a real trip around the Moon and back — the essential proof that the hardware itself worked before ever putting astronauts aboard. Read the full story in Artemis I: NASA's First Deep-Space Test of the New Architecture. Artemis II flew on April 1, 2026, carrying four astronauts on a lunar flyby without landing — the first crewed test of the same systems. Under NASA's current architecture, Artemis III is now a crewed demonstration mission in low-Earth orbit, planned for 2027, testing commercial lunar landers before the first actual Artemis landing — now planned for Artemis IV, targeted for 2028. This sequence has already changed once as the program progressed — always check NASA's own current mission pages for the latest confirmed schedule rather than treating any specific date as fixed.