NASA lays out its path to a 2028 Moon landing, with a 2027 test of two commercial landers

NASA has set out how it plans to return astronauts to the Moon in 2028. In an article published on November 4, 2026, summarizing an October 23 update from Administrator Jared Isaacman and other leaders, the agency described two flights: Artemis III, a test in Earth orbit in 2027, and Artemis IV, the landing itself in 2028. It has not said whose lander goes first. That choice, NASA says, will depend on which is ready.

The plan differs sharply from the one NASA started with. Under the original contracts, SpaceX's Starship was assigned to Artemis III and IV, with Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark 2 following on Artemis V. In February 2026, NASA turned Artemis III into an Earth-orbit test and set the landing for Artemis IV. The lander designs have now changed as well. Artemis II, which took four astronauts around the Moon, splashed down on April 10.

Artemis III: three rockets, two dockings

Artemis III is planned for 14 days, with NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano aboard Orion. Blue Origin goes first, launching a test version of its Blue Moon Mark 2 lander into a circular orbit about 273 miles up, where it can remain for up to 30 days. Days later, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket lifts Orion from Kennedy Space Center. The crew then docks with the lander and spends about two days assessing its cabin, controls and life support from inside.

SpaceX launches later in the mission, because its Starship test vehicle is designed for a much shorter stay in orbit. Orion undocks from Blue Moon and joins a Version 3 Starship for a docking test of up to two hours. The crew will not go inside. Up to five more days of tests are available before the crew prepares for a splashdown in the Pacific off California.

We’re launching three spacecraft on three different rockets and testing how they operate together — something NASA has never attempted.

Artemis IV: two routes to the surface

On either lander, two astronauts would descend while two stay aboard Orion, with NASA targeting two moonwalks of about two hours each. Both companies have reworked their plans, and Orion will no longer meet a lander in the near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon. Instead, the meeting place differs for each company.

NASA is keeping options open elsewhere too. For Artemis IV it is pursuing two upper stages for the SLS, the current interim cryogenic propulsion stage and a stretched version of United Launch Alliance's Centaur V, to keep flexibility and avoid what it calls “single-point dependency.” It also announced plans with spacesuit provider Axiom Space for a “Sortie suit,” roughly half the weight of Axiom's main suit, for the first moonwalks. The larger suit stays for longer, more demanding missions.

What NASA says about the schedule

NASA reports that Artemis III hardware is on track, with processing timelines cut by about half, and that it redesigned, built and tested a critical fuel-line component in-house in five months, for roughly a tenth of the cost an outside vendor had estimated earlier. Those are the agency's own assessments. Its October 13 status report says the boosters are stacked and that the partly assembled rocket will roll out for a propellant-loading test “in the coming months.” The articles give no date for Artemis III more precise than 2027.

Several steps stand between that test and a landing. Both companies must fly an uncrewed demonstration of their crewed landers, and NASA must certify the systems. NASA says both are targeting 2028, and that a second crewed landing opportunity will follow the first. The plan it announced in February calls for at least one landing every year after that. NASA frames the pace as a matter of competition: Isaacman says “the campaign must move with urgency as strategic competitors pursue a permanent presence beyond Earth.”