Artemis III aims for 'late 2027' for Earth orbit demonstration
- Reference: 1777651207
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/05/01/artemis_iii_aims_for_late/
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Isaacman was speaking during the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies hearing earlier this week, and said the agency has received responses from both SpaceX and Blue Origin to the effect that both vendors would be able "to meet our needs for a late 2027 rendezvous, docking and test the interoperability of both landers in advance of a landing attempt in 2028."
During NASA's [1]Ignition event, 2027 was repeatedly mentioned as the target for Artemis III, so a late 2027 date meets that goal. However, Isaacman also said the agency intends to increase the cadence of Artemis launches and close the launch gap to a matter of months, rather than the over three years between Artemis I and Artemis II. Artemis III, being set for late 2027, is a bit more than mere months after Artemis II.
[2]
The core stage for the Space Launch System (SLS) that will launch Artemis III was [3]rolled out from NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans on Monday for shipping to Kennedy Space Center, and wheeled into the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for processing. The engine section is [4]already there , and the first shipment of Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) segments arrived on April 13. As such, engineers are well on the way to putting Artemis III together.
[5]
While Isaacman did not spell it out, there is a good chance the late 2027 target is driven by SpaceX's and Blue Origin's needs. Under the original plan, Artemis III was the landing mission, but it became [6]painfully clear last year that SpaceX was unable to get the lunar version of its Starship vehicle ready in time. It has yet to demonstrate it can get a Starship into orbit, let alone show off the Starship-to-Starship fuel transfer required for a lunar mission.
[7]NASA boss: make Pluto a planet again
[8]Despite proposed science cuts, NASA boss says 'We haven't canceled anything yet'
[9]NASA Inspector fears new spacesuits won't be ready for Moon landing
[10]Blue Origin nails the landing, but puts the payload satellite in the wrong orbit
Isaacman [11]repurposed Artemis III to demonstrate whatever SpaceX and Blue Origin could get working in 2027 in Low Earth Orbit.
The date for Artemis III has always been vague in official announcements. However, Isaacman's desire to get the gap between missions down to months rather than years suggests the first half of 2027 was an option. Given the latest stated scheduled, the question is whether SpaceX and Blue Origin will be ready in time. The Register contacted both companies about their plans, but neither responded.
A lunar landing in 2028 is a very ambitious goal, in the same way that a 2027 landing was ambitious to the point of being impossible. The confirmation of a late 2027 rendezvous and docking test in Low Earth Orbit means there really will be mere months – barely a year – before Artemis IV is ready to return humans to the lunar surface. ®
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[1] https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-unveils-initiatives-to-achieve-americas-national-space-policy/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2afUidM95hvEshgcT9SSjmQAAAoU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-rolls-out-artemis-iii-moon-rocket-core-stage/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT-50ZR0fNU
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44afUidM95hvEshgcT9SSjmQAAAoU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/21/spacex_is_behind_schedule_so/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/29/nasa_boss_make_pluto_a_planet_again/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/28/despite_proposed_science_cuts_nasa/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/21/nasa_oig_spacesuit_report/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/20/blue_origin_nails_the_landing/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/02/nasa_artemis_reshuffle/
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: No Starship flights
Haven't they run out of units for RUD testing for the time being? ISTR they'd stopping building them while preparing for the next iteration of the design?
Re: No Starship flights
They’ve switch to building Raptor V3s and they’ve built a lot of them. They are planning the next test flight about May 12 for the Starship V3 with Raptor V3.
I would say that this is obviously down to both Space-X and Blue Origin not being ready before then - and that’s possibly an optimistic estimate. It seems likely that the SLS launcher itself could be ready in a matter of months, the Orion spacecraft, not so much.
"It has yet to demonstrate it can get a Starship into orbit, let alone show off the Starship-to-Starship fuel transfer required for a lunar mission.”, yes true, sort of, but the extra delta-v needed to put it in a stable (but low) orbit is tiny, and could easily be done. The problem is the de-orbit, I believe the dry-mass is around 100 metric tonnes and it’s made of stainless steel, a lot of which will survive re-entry. You really, really don’t want to deal with the possible consequences of an uncontrolled re-entry. I suspect Space-X are concerned about the reliability of re-lighting a Raptor engine in space to control the de-orbit burn.
But absolutely the technology for in-orbit refuelling has yet to be demonstrated, it should work but...and remember it doesn’t have to work once, but multiple times - just one fails and damages or blocks the transfer, that’s it the entire mission is scrubbed. It’s an ‘ambitious’ project, to say the least!
I fully expect that the next humans to walk on the moon will be Chinese - and that’s fine, it will basically be a repeat of Apollo, which I have no doubt the US will state - ‘yes well done guys, you have managed to repeat what we did sixty years ago’; to which the obvious retort is, 'yes but we have done it now and you can’t’ do it now!”
Now as a Brit, please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the problem is a lack of a long-term strategy - say two decades long which will span multiple Administrations and Congresses, the Administration which initiates the program will be long gone by the time it comes to fruition. No, apparent win for them - but a long/medium term win for the US. What is more importent?
If it wasn't for the minor detail of the atmosphere, the last couple (at least) of Starship flights would have been orbital as calculated by Jonathan McDowell although the perigee would have been between 3 and 5km. Relighting a raptor in space has been done, although so far to give the ship a bit of extra boost rather than bringing it down. According to His Muskiness, they want to do two repeats of that flight profile (previous relights were Raptor 2, next several flights are Raptor 3) before going for a proper orbit and a ship catch back in Texas.
Yes continuity between administrations is one problem
The other is that congress has too much horse trading and pork barreling so everything gets split up among many states / congressional districts. That may be good for winning votes but it is terrible for an efficient program.
The only reason we are even trying to go to the moon again is because Trump decided in his first term he wanted to for his own ego. Republicans have been trying to axe NASA for ages, they only approved the budget for this because Trump wanted it. If it doesn't happen before the end of his term (which seems almost a certainty now) they better be really close to going. If it gets delayed far enough it can't beat China I think republicans would be happy to slash the Artemis budget and say "private companies like SpaceX should fund this, not the taxpayers".
No Starship flights
I'm kind of puzzled at the lack of another "break things and move fast" flight.
Maybe SpaceX has run into a truly thorny issue with Starship?