NASA’s path back to the Moon now runs through low Earth orbit. On Friday, agency leaders laid out a detailed plan for Artemis III, a 2027 mission that will send four astronauts on a 14-day flight close to home to rehearse the tricky choreography a lunar landing will demand. It is the clearest picture yet of how NASA hopes to put astronauts on the lunar surface in 2028.

Here is what the mission involves, based on NASA’s Artemis III mission overview, its lander development update and reporting from SpaceNews.

Meet the crew

Artemis III will carry NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas, along with European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, aboard the Orion spacecraft. Their job is not to land, but to test the hardware and procedures that future landing crews will rely on.

“Every piece of this mission in Earth orbit is designed to reduce risk before we put astronauts back on the Moon,” said Jeremy Parsons, NASA’s Artemis program manager. “We’re launching three spacecraft on three different rockets and testing how they operate together, something NASA has never attempted.”

Step one: Blue Origin’s Blue Moon

The mission begins with Blue Origin launching a test version of its Blue Moon Mark 2 lander into a circular orbit about 273 miles above Earth. The lander can wait in orbit for up to 30 days, giving NASA schedule flexibility.

Days later, once the lander checks out healthy, NASA plans to launch Orion on its SLS rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Orion will spend its first two days checking systems and maneuvering toward the waiting lander, then dock with it.

Once docked, astronauts will spend about two days aboard the Blue Moon test article. They will open the hatch, enter the cabin and evaluate its controls, life support, atmosphere and pressure firsthand. NASA describes it as the agency’s first evaluation of a commercial lunar lander with a crew on board.

Step two: SpaceX’s Starship

After undocking from Blue Moon, Orion will reposition for a second rendezvous. SpaceX will launch a Starship Version 3 test article from Florida later in the mission, because Starship is designed for a shorter stay in orbit. It will carry a docking system mounted at its nose.

Orion will dock with Starship for a test expected to last up to two hours. The crew will not go inside Starship this time. Instead, NASA and SpaceX will study how the two vehicles behave as a docked system, including controllability, communications and software performance.

The two dockings also test different geometries: Orion connects to a port beside Blue Moon’s crew cabin, then lines up nose-to-nose with Starship.

Bonus science before splashdown

With both dockings done, the crew will have up to five more days in orbit for other objectives, including spacesuit evaluations, docking sensor tests, a cell biology experiment, Earth and solar observations and trials of how future lunar samples could be handled after landing. Plant seeds will also fly aboard Orion. The mission will end with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off California.

The road to a 2028 landing

NASA said Artemis IV remains the target for the first crewed landing near the lunar South Pole in 2028. To speed things up, landers and Orion will no longer meet in the near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon originally planned; each provider will use an orbit suited to its system. NASA will decide which company flies astronauts first based on lander readiness, with both required to fly an uncrewed demonstration beforehand.

“NASA has no intention of sitting idly by as all the pieces come together,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. SpaceNews reported that officials acknowledged the 2027 precursor mission remains behind schedule, and that NASA is keeping its options open on launch vehicles and landers to protect the 2028 goal.

Why it matters

Apollo built confidence step by step, testing docking and lander operations in Earth orbit before attempting a landing. Artemis III revives that playbook with a modern twist: two private landers, three rockets and one carefully choreographed flight. If it goes to plan, the next Americans to walk on the Moon will be following a path rehearsed just a few hundred miles above our heads.

Image: Artemis 1 – Orion and ESM approach Moon by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain Mark 1.0