Artemis III flies in 2027 with four astronauts aboard — and never leaves Earth orbit. What it does up there decides who lands on the Moon in 2028.
Artemis III was meant to put boots on the Moon. NASA rebuilt it into a low Earth orbit test flight and moved the landing itself to Artemis IV in 2028.
Commander Randy Bresnik and ESA pilot Luca Parmitano fly with mission specialists Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio. NASA named the crew on 9 June 2026.
Rubio spent 371 straight days in orbit in 2022-23, the longest US spaceflight. Parmitano has two long station stays; Douglas, a rookie, backed up Artemis II.
They launch on the Space Launch System inside an Orion capsule — the configuration Artemis II flew in April. NASA is deliberately not redesigning between flights.
Orion will chase down and dock with SpaceX's Starship lander in Earth orbit — the first time a crewed Orion meets the kind of vehicle built to carry it down.
Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander rides a New Glenn rocket up for the same treatment. Two companies, one crew, one rehearsal — and only one of them lands in 2028.
A docking that goes wrong here is hours from home, not days. The crew rehearses the full choreography — approach, dock, systems checkout — while help is close.
The flight also evaluates the new Axiom-built moonwalk suits, designed for shifts of at least eight hours and for ground where the Sun barely clears the horizon.
Artemis IV aims for the polar region, where some crater floors have sat in permanent shadow for billions of years and are thought to hold water ice.
Nobody has walked on the Moon since December 1972. If the 2027 rehearsal holds up, Artemis IV lands in 2028 — and NASA wants a surface mission every year after.