Artemis III

Space Launch System

The Space Launch System (SLS) is a super heavy-lift launch vehicle used to send the Orion spacecraft into orbit. The core stage for this mission is planned to use RS-25 engines E2048, E2052, E2054, and E2057, all of which previously flew on Space Shuttle missions and were refurbished by Aerojet Rocketdyne.^[16][17]

The upper section of the core stage was built by Boeing, including the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks, intertank, and forward skirt, was completed in April 2026 at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans and was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center aboard the Pegasus barge on April 28. After arrival, the engine section, with its RS-25 engines, is to be installed. The refurbished engines are scheduled to be delivered from Stennis Space Center in Mississippi no later than July 2026.^[18]

The mobile launch tower was returned to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center following Artemis II for refurbishment and preparation for subsequent stacking operations.^[19]

As of April 2026^[update], NASA has one remaining Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS). The agency has not yet decided if it will use the ICPS on Artemis III or preserve it for use on Artemis IV.^[19]

Orion

Like the previous 2 missions, Orion is the crew transport vehicle being used by all of the Artemis missions thereafter. It will transport the crew from Earth to orbit, dock with the HLS lander, and return the crew back to Earth.

The European Service Module (ESM) for Artemis III, ESM-3, was delivered to NASA from the Airbus facility in Bremen, Germany, sometime in September 2024.^[20]

The spacecraft's pressure vessel was built by Lockheed Martin at the Michoud Assembly Facility and shipped to the Kennedy Space Center in August 2021 for final assembly.^[21] As of early 2026, production of the Artemis III Orion spacecraft was ongoing, with an internal readiness date of January 2028. Following a revision to Artemis III mission plans, which target a late 2027 launch,^[4] NASA and Lockheed Martin have taken steps to speed up Orion rates.^[19]

Lunar landers

Artemis III is planned to test one or both of two Human Landing System (HLS) lunar landers in Earth orbit: SpaceX's Starship HLS and a Blue Origin lander, reportedly a crew-carrying variant of Blue Moon Mark 1.^[22] The mission includes testing of rendezvous and docking operations with Orion. As of April 2026^[update], both HLS landers remain under development and must complete NASA's human-rating certification process before crewed operations.^[19][23]

Early planning

Upon the December 2017 ratification of the first Trump administration's Space Policy Directive 1, a crewed lunar campaign—later known as the Artemis program—using the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) and a space station in lunar orbit was established. Originally billed as Exploration Mission-3 (EM-3), the goal of the mission was to send four astronauts into a near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon and deliver the ESPRIT and U.S. Utilization Module to the now cancelled lunar space station, known as the Gateway.^[24]

By May 2019, however, ESPRIT and the U.S. Utilization Module—renamed HALO—were re-manifested to fly separately on a commercial launch vehicle. Artemis III, as it was billed, was repurposed to accelerate the first crewed lunar landing of the Artemis program by the end of 2024, with a profile that would have seen the Orion MPCV rendezvous with a minimal Gateway space station made up of only the Power and Propulsion Element and a small habitat and docking node with an attached commercially procured lunar lander known as the Human Landing System (HLS).^[25] By early 2020, plans for Orion and the HLS to rendezvous with the Gateway were abandoned in favor of direct docking of Orion and HLS, and delivery of the Gateway after Artemis III.^[26][27]

Delays

On August 10, 2021, a U.S. government Office of Inspector General audit reported a conclusion that the spacesuits would not be ready to be used until April 2025 at the earliest, likely delaying the mission from the planned late 2024 launch date.^[28] Axiom Space will design the space suits, with collaboration from fashion house Prada.^[29] On November 9, 2021, the Administrator of NASA, Bill Nelson, confirmed that Artemis III would launch no earlier than 2025.^[30]

In June 2023, Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems development, said that launch would "probably" be no earlier than 2026.^[31][32] Later in December 2023, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported the mission was unlikely to occur before 2027.^[33] In January 2024, NASA officially delayed Artemis III to no earlier than September 2026.^[34]

The European Service Module for the mission was completed and delivered to NASA in September 2024.^[35] In December 2024, NASA officially delayed Artemis III to no earlier than 2027.^[12]

In January 2026, NASA delayed Artemis III to no earlier than 2028,^[12] before revising the plan in February to target a launch in late 2027.^[4] Under the updated profile, the mission would no longer attempt a lunar landing, instead conducting rendezvous and docking tests in low Earth orbit with commercially developed lunar landers, including SpaceX's Starship HLS and Blue Origin's Blue Moon, and evaluating the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU).^[2] The target of late 2027 was confirmed on April 27, 2026, when NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman was question before the House Appropriations Committee. Isaacman explained that the initial target of early 2027 would be missed due to delays in both SpaceX's Starship HLS and Blue Origin's Blue Moon.^[36]

Development and funding

In March 2024, NASA announced the scientific instruments to be included on the mission were a compact, autonomous seismometer suite called the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station, or LEMS. LEMS will characterize the regional structure of the Moon's crust and mantle to inform the development of lunar formation and evolution models. Another instrument is Lunar Effects on Agricultural Flora, a.k.a. LEAF, which will investigate the impact of the lunar surface environment on space crops. The third instrument is the Lunar Dielectric Analyzer, or LDA, an internationally contributed payload that will measure the regolith's ability to propagate an electric field.^[37]

On May 2, 2025, the second Trump administration released its fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, which proposed canceling the SLS and Orion spacecraft after Artemis III due to the former's cost of $4 billion per launch.^[38] However, on July 4, 2025, President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law, which included provisions that allocated funding for continued development and operation of the SLS and Orion spacecraft beyond the Artemis III mission.^[39]

In August 2025, NASA reported that processing had begun on the lower "boat tail" section of the SLS core stage at the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC).^[40]

In April 2026, the upper section of the core stage, including the propellant tanks and forward structures built by Boeing at the Michoud Assembly Facility, was completed and transported to KSC aboard the Pegasus barge.^[41] The stage departed New Orleans on April 20,^[42] arrived in Florida on April 27,^[43] and was transferred into the VAB on April 28.^[44] The rocket thrusters were not included in the transportation, though will be assembled in coming months.^[45]