The moon landing 2028 plan is official: NASA has moved its first crewed lunar landing from Artemis III to Artemis IV, now targeted for 2028. Administrator Jared Isaacman announced the restructured timeline on Friday, October 23, 2026, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Artemis III will still fly in 2027 — but as a 14-day Earth-orbit rehearsal — while Artemis IV becomes the mission that puts American astronauts back on the lunar surface for the first time since 1972.
What happened at the October 23 briefing
Isaacman headlined NASA's "Artemis Acceleration" press conference alongside Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya and Artemis Program Manager Jeremy Parsons. The message was blunt: NASA must change how it approaches the program if it hopes to meet its goals. Isaacman acknowledged that institutional inertia and misplaced priorities contributed to Artemis delays, and challenged the idea that more time, more money, and fewer launches necessarily make a program safer. "What we are undertaking is ambitious. It's extraordinarily difficult, and years of decisions both within and beyond the walls of this agency have cost us time and resources that we never had to spare," Isaacman said. "But we are reinvigorating, and the extraordinary vehicles our industry partners are building, are worth every bit of that effort."
The core shift: Artemis III, targeted for summer 2027, becomes a low-Earth-orbit technology demonstration instead of a lunar flight. Artemis IV, targeted for 2028, becomes the first Artemis mission to land astronauts on the Moon. The Moon has not been cancelled — it has simply been moved one mission down the road.
Artemis III's new flight plan: a 14-day Earth-orbit rehearsal
Artemis III will send four astronauts into low Earth orbit to practice docking the Orion spacecraft with two commercial lunar landers — one built by Blue Origin, one by SpaceX. The crew: Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas (NASA), plus Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency; Bob Hines is the backup.
The choreography is unusual. Blue Origin launches first, sending a test version of its Blue Moon Mark 2 lander into orbit to loiter while the company checks its condition. Orion then launches on NASA's Space Launch System rocket. After two days of systems checks and close-range maneuver rehearsals, Orion moves into a 237-nautical-mile rendezvous orbit and docks with Blue Origin's lander on day three — one of the flight's main tests. Over the following two days, the astronauts enter Blue Moon and work through operational procedures, including cabin, controls and life-support checks, with mission control.
The SpaceX test is shorter. A test article of its Starship Version 3 lander launches from Florida; once Orion separates from Blue Moon and adjusts its orbit, the two rendezvous on day eight for a demonstration of up to two hours. This time the crew stays inside Orion — a docking-only test with no transfer into Starship. The final days cover additional Orion tests, spacesuit evaluations, research and technology demonstrations before the crew returns home. The nominal mission is 14 days, though it could stretch to 17 if weather or other delays intervene.
| Milestone | What happens |
|---|---|
| Day 1 | Blue Origin's Blue Moon test lander launches into Earth orbit |
| Days 1–2 | Orion launches on SLS; crew checks systems and rehearses maneuvers |
| Day 3 | Orion docks with Blue Moon; astronauts begin two days of cabin and life-support tests |
| Day 8 | Orion docks with SpaceX Starship test article for ~2 hours (crew stays in Orion) |
| Days 9–14 | Final tests, spacesuit evaluations, research, return |
Two landers, one big decision: Artemis IV's 2028 moonshot
For Artemis IV, NASA has laid out two lander options and has not yet decided between them. One uses SpaceX's Starship and its human landing system, which would dock with Orion in Earth orbit and use its own engines to push the crew capsule toward the Moon. The other pairs Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark 2 with its New Glenn rocket, using independent transfer stages to reach lunar orbit, where Orion would meet and dock with it.
Either option — or even both — could be ready by the end of 2028. But neither company has had an easy year. New Glenn has not flown since it exploded on the launch pad in May, and Starship only completed its first uncrewed orbital flight in September. Artemis Program Manager Jeremy Parsons expressed confidence: "You will have multiple launches of Starship before we go conduct Artemis III, and you will have multiple launches of the Blue Origin New Glenn vehicle from the rebuilt pad before we go launch Artemis III, and so that's going to give us a lot of confidence."
Why NASA hit the reset button
The restructuring follows technical setbacks, including issues during Artemis II's wet dress rehearsal and a helium flow problem that forced the rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs. Isaacman said Artemis III is running about 90 days behind its planned schedule on paper — a planning figure, he stressed, not a reflection of effort.
NASA also announced hardware changes aimed at chronic constraints: standardizing the manufacturing process and configuration of the Space Launch System, aiming to fly the rocket roughly every 10 months instead of once every three years. The agency described faster supply chains, a stretched Vulcan rocket upgrade for Artemis III, and trimmed Axiom spacesuit requirements so it can be ready for Artemis IV. One geometry change: instead of meeting in a near-rectilinear halo orbit, the landers and Orion will use partner-specific lunar orbits — a choice NASA says enables faster returns from the surface to Orion, reduces Blue Moon's propellant needs, and improves SLS performance.
The China factor: a new space race
Competition with China is now the explicit backdrop for every Artemis decision. Earlier this year, Isaacman suggested China may send a crewed mission around the Moon in 2027 — and noted NASA may have narrowly avoided embarrassment after China's uncrewed Chang'e-6 lander fell behind schedule this year. The Moon's south pole sits near resources both countries want, and Isaacman framed the contest bluntly: "Here we are today, very much in a new space race, and despite decades of accumulated knowledge and extraordinary advancements in technology, this race will be much closer than it ever needed to be." He added that NASA will not launch until it is ready — but will not "sit idly by and watch one of the most consequential moments of this new century pass [to] our overseas competitors." See also our earlier coverage of US-China talks on AI safety and trade for how the competition is playing out in other arenas.
What's next: the milestones to watch
The revised timeline hinges on a string of milestones over the next two years:
- Early 2027: SpaceX attempts its first ship-to-ship propellant transfer demonstration in orbit — a capability its lunar lander needs to reach the Moon.
- Spring 2027: SpaceX aims to demonstrate landing legs, followed by uncrewed tanker demo flights and a targeted uncrewed Starship lunar landing in late 2027.
- 2027: Blue Origin plans to fly its uncrewed Mark 1 cargo lander, Endurance, to the lunar surface, an uncrewed Mark 2 demonstration late in the year, and an uncrewed Mark 2 landing in early 2028.
- Summer 2027: Artemis III launches four astronauts for the 14-day Earth-orbit rehearsal.
- 2028: Artemis IV targets the first crewed lunar landing since 1972 — and the lander choice (Starship or Blue Moon) must be locked in before then.
Isaacman voiced confidence: "We are going to be able to launch Artemis III next year," he said, while stressing the need for comprehensive system validations. SpaceX's fingerprints are all over NASA's near-term plans — from the Tesla flying roadster spectacle associated with the company's founder to the orbital propellant transfers that will decide whether Artemis IV flies on schedule. For NASA's official program overview, see nasa.gov/artemis, and for detailed reporting on the October 23 briefing, the National Space Society's write-up at nss.org.
The bottom line: NASA traded a moonshot rehearsal for a slower, safer path. Artemis III now exists to prove the landers work — docking Orion with both Blue Origin's Blue Moon and SpaceX's Starship in Earth orbit — before any crew commits to the surface. If Artemis IV lands on schedule in 2028, humans will walk on the Moon for the first time in more than half a century. If it slips, the space race with China gets a lot more uncomfortable.