NASA plans to launch the Artemis III mission next summer for a crucial docking exercise involving lunar landers developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, as the agency accelerates plans to return astronauts to the Moon.
The two-week flight will carry four astronauts but will remain in orbit around Earth, rather than travelling to the lunar surface. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said the mission remains on schedule.
Three astronauts from NASA and one Italian will travel aboard the Orion capsule, with the mission requiring three launches in quick succession from Cape Canaveral.
Orion will first dock with Blue Origin’s Blue Ghost lander at an altitude of about 270 miles (435 kilometres), before connecting with SpaceX’s Starship in a slightly lower orbit.
NASA’s associate administrator Amit Kshatriya described the planned operation as “pretty awesome”, adding: “As a rocket nerd, it’s going to be pretty awesome.”
Artemis IV Moon landing remains planned for 2028
NASA will delay its choice between SpaceX and Blue Origin for the Artemis IV lunar lander for as long as possible, officials said. Artemis IV is still scheduled for 2028 and is intended to be the first crewed Moon landing since the Apollo programme.
The update follows the successful Artemis II flight around the Moon by four astronauts six months ago, the first human lunar journey in more than half a century.
Mr Isaacman said the modern race to land astronauts on the Moon, this time involving China rather than the Soviet Union, would be “much closer than it ever needed to be” because of delays in previous years.
He said NASA was now trying to move faster by cutting lengthy meetings and bureaucratic delays, while SpaceX, Blue Origin and other companies worked to meet the deadlines and the agency expanded its workforce.
Mr Isaacman said the approach was based on the urgency of the Apollo era, when 24 astronauts travelled to the Moon and 12 walked on its surface between 1968 and 1972.
“It’s about our own history. It’s a playbook this agency knows really well, the same playbook that went from Apollo 7 splashdown to Apollo 11 in just nine months,” he said at a news conference at Kennedy Space Centre.
NASA also expects the first launch connected to a planned lunar base near the Moon’s south pole by the end of the year. A Pittsburgh company whose first lunar landing attempt failed in 2024 will make a second attempt, carrying a rover and other experiments.
Further landers, rovers and orbiters are expected to be sent ahead of the first Artemis moonwalkers, with officials saying the lunar vehicle will already be waiting for them when they arrive.
To reduce risk and speed up the initial missions, astronauts will use a lighter and less complex spacesuit than the one being developed by Axiom Space for longer excursions. Axiom plans to test the new “sortie suits” on the International Space Station next year.
NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, who is part of the Artemis III crew, said establishing a lasting presence on the Moon was considerably more difficult than the short Apollo missions.
“It is incredibly ambitious,” he told the Associated Press earlier this month. “One thing I’ve always believed and learned is don’t bet against America.”
