Space Launch Schedule 2027: Artemis III, Moon Landers, New Rockets and the Year's Big Missions

As of November 8, 2026: 2027 starts with a queue of missions that were meant to fly in 2026 and builds toward NASA's Artemis III, a crewed test flight in Earth orbit targeted for mid-2027. Also targeted for the year: Boeing's uncrewed Starliner-1 cargo flight, Axiom Space's fifth private astronaut mission, Blue Origin's New Glenn returning to flight and its first Blue Moon lander, Vast's Haven-1 station, the first launch of Rocket Lab's Neutron, the first flight of Eclipse from Firefly Aerospace and Northrop Grumman (no earlier than 2027), ESA's Plato planet hunter and the first orbital flight of China's Mengzhou Moon ship. This guide lists the big launches planned for 2027, who gives each date, and where each one stands today.

Every date below is a target, and slips are normal. Early in 2026 NASA expected up to four robotic Moon landers to launch during the year; with just over two months left, none had, The Space Review reported on October 26. Some of the dates here will move too. Our live launch schedule updates as they do, and the launch slip explorer records every date change we observe. For the year now ending, see our 2026 launch schedule.

2027 at a glance

• Early 2027 (January to March, or stated only as early 2027): Starliner-1 (Boeing, October 27: first quarter of 2027), Axiom Mission 5 (no earlier than January), Griffin-1 (the company: late 2026; NASA's October planning: no earlier than January), New Glenn's return to flight (January, Blue Origin's plan as reported), Haven-1 (no earlier than the first quarter), SpaceX's first ship-to-ship propellant transfer (early 2027) and the Long March 10A and Mengzhou demonstration flight (early 2027, as reported).
• Spring: Blue Origin's first Blue Moon Mk1 lander (spring, as reported) and ESA's Plato (planned for April).
• Mid-2027: NASA's Artemis III.
• Later in 2027 / no earlier than 2027: Neutron's first launch (2027), Eclipse's first flight (no earlier than 2027), Intuitive Machines' IM-3, Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 2, NASA's VIPER rover and COSI telescope, and SpaceX's uncrewed Starship lunar landing test (late 2027).

Artemis III: the headline flight, targeted for mid-2027

NASA's Artemis III is no longer a Moon landing. It is a crewed test in low Earth orbit. NASA's SLS rocket will launch the Orion spacecraft and its crew from Kennedy Space Center, and the crew will practice rendezvous and docking with test versions of both commercial landers, from Blue Origin and SpaceX, according to the flight plan NASA showed on October 23 (in June, NASA had said one or both). NASA named the crew on June 9: Randy Bresnik (commander), ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano (pilot), and Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio (mission specialists), with Bob Hines as backup. The crew is expected to stay in space for about two weeks.

The order of launches is part of the test. Blue Origin's lander pathfinder, which can stay in orbit for multiple weeks, launches first and waits for the crew, NASA says. SpaceX's Starship pathfinder launches later; in the flight plan NASA showed on October 23, Orion spends about two hours docked to it and the crew does not go aboard (NASA's June plan had about a day).

Status: At an October 23 briefing, NASA officials said Artemis III is still expected in mid-2027, SpacePolicyOnline reported. In a September note to the NASA workforce, Administrator Jared Isaacman had called the date "90 days broken to schedule"; on October 23 he said the note was meant to galvanize the workforce to find solutions. Artemis IV and Artemis V, the flights planned to land astronauts on the Moon, are both targeted for 2028.

Moon landers: the 2026 queue, now in 2027

• Griffin-1 (Voyager Lunar Systems, formerly Astrobotic): the company said in October it still planned to launch late in 2026. NASA's Ryan Stephan said on October 14 the launch was planned for "end of this year, beginning of next year," and his slides listed no earlier than January 2027 (The Space Review). Griffin-1 lifts off on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy and carries Astrolab's FLIP rover.
• Blue Moon Mk1 (Blue Origin): the lander, called Endurance, was grounded by the New Glenn pad explosion. The Space Review said on October 26 it was not expected to launch until early 2027; after New Glenn's return moved to January, Ars Technica reported on November 6 that it is now expected in the spring. NASA's VIPER rover is to ride a Blue Moon Mark 1 lander to the lunar South Pole region in 2027 to search permanently shadowed craters for water, NASA says.
• IM-3 (Intuitive Machines) and Blue Ghost Mission 2 (Firefly Aerospace): both have slipped into 2027. A recent Firefly photo showed Blue Ghost 2 still being assembled at the company's Texas factory, still lacking its engines and other propulsion components (The Space Review).
• Starship's Moon tests (SpaceX): to leave Earth orbit, Starship needs ship-to-ship propellant transfer in orbit, which has not yet been demonstrated. SpaceX anticipates doing it for the first time early in 2027, and its uncrewed lunar landing test in late 2027 (SpacePolicyOnline). Our Flight 15 analysis covers where Starship stands now.
• China's Chang'e-7: the south pole orbiter and lander was called off hours before its late-August launch. It has been postponed indefinitely, at least to some time in 2027, and Chinese officials have not disclosed the cause (The Space Review).

NASA wants many more landings. At its Ignition event in March, NASA's Moon Base program manager outlined nine lunar landings in 2027 and ten in 2028. In October, NASA science chief Nicky Fox spoke only of the 2028 goal: "We'll use '27 to ramp up to it," she said (The Space Review). Our Moon race tracker moves only when flights happen.

Crew flights and Vast's Haven-1 station

• Starliner-1 (Boeing): an uncrewed flight carrying cargo to the International Space Station. NASA and Boeing said on September 28 that it was planned for the December 2026 or January 2027 timeframe; in its quarterly report filed October 27, Boeing said it now expects to complete the uncrewed mission in the first quarter of 2027. Crewed Starliner missions are expected to begin in late 2028, Boeing said in its October 27 quarterly report.
• Axiom Mission 5 (Axiom Space): targeted to launch no earlier than January 2027 from Kennedy Space Center and to spend up to 14 days docked to the station. Axiom's mission page says the crew will be announced at a future date.
• Haven-1 (Vast): Vast says its first station is targeted to launch in 2027. In January the company moved the launch to no earlier than the first quarter of 2027, Payload reported, adding that the first crew could follow significantly later. Haven-1 is expected to host up to four commercial astronauts on missions of up to two weeks.
• Artemis III: covered above.

Axiom Mission 5 and Artemis III are both planned to launch from Kennedy Space Center. The January 2027 Cape Canaveral schedule is already open, and our Cape Canaveral viewing guide covers where to watch.

New rockets and returns to flight

• New Glenn (Blue Origin): after the destructive pad explosion in May, Blue Origin now plans to resume New Glenn launches in January, Bloomberg reported, according to Ars Technica's Rocket Report of November 6. Chief executive Dave Limp told employees the company is targeting a flight early in 2027. There is pent-up demand for it from NASA, Amazon and the Space Force, Ars notes.
• Neutron (Rocket Lab): Rocket Lab said on October 14 that Neutron's inaugural launch is now expected to occur in 2027. Neutron's launch site, Launch Complex 3 in Virginia, is complete, the company says.
• Eclipse (Firefly Aerospace and Northrop Grumman): a medium-lift rocket able to lift more than 16,000 kg to orbit, with its first flight scheduled for no earlier than 2027 from Virginia's Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, Firefly says. Follow Virginia launches on our Wallops launch schedule.
• Long March 10A and Mengzhou (China): the next big test of China's crewed Moon program is a demonstration flight of the single-core Long March 10A rocket with the new Mengzhou Moon ship to low Earth orbit in early 2027, Ars Technica reports. The official accounts we found give no date; our analysis of China's Moon landing plan covers what officials said. Mengzhou has flown once already, in a maximum dynamic pressure abort test on a low-altitude Long March 10 test flight from Wenchang on February 11, 2026, Xinhua reported.

One new rocket is not on the 2027 list: AST SpaceMobile says its own rocket, Blacklift, will start launching in late 2028 (see our Blacklift analysis).

Science missions

• Plato (ESA): a planet hunter that will use 26 cameras to study terrestrial exoplanets in orbits up to the habitable zone of Sun-like stars. ESA lists the launch as planned for April 2027 on Ariane 6 from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, to a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L2 point. After a series of tests under space-like conditions, ESA says the spacecraft is on track to lift off in early 2027. Follow it on our April 2027 Kourou schedule.
• COSI (NASA): a gamma-ray telescope, an Astrophysics Small Explorer that will probe the origins of our galaxy's antimatter. NASA lists its launch as 2027.
• Xuntian (China): the bus-sized Chinese Space Station Telescope, with a 2-meter primary mirror slightly smaller than Hubble's, was being readied for a launch as soon as early 2027, Space.com reported in January.
• VIPER (NASA): the water-hunting rover, listed under Moon landers above.

Constellations: Amazon Leo's long build-out

Amazon Leo, formerly Project Kuiper, was due to have half its constellation, 1,616 satellites, in orbit by July 30, 2026. When it asked for more time in January, it had launched 180 and expected about 700 by the deadline. On June 5 the FCC granted a limited waiver of that milestone; Amazon is still expected to complete the full constellation by July 30, 2029, The Register reported. Amazon says it has launched nearly 400 satellites across 14 missions (update of October 28), and the FCC order of June 5 keeps its obligation to deploy all 3,232 satellites of its first-generation constellation by July 30, 2029, so most of the network is still to be launched and Amazon Leo missions will keep appearing on the schedule.

Following 2027 month by month

Our monthly pages list each launch with a date in that month, site by site, and fill in as dates firm up. Pages are open now through May 2027, and later months open as each comes within six months:

• Cape Canaveral and Kennedy: January, February, March, April and May 2027
• Worldwide: January, February, March, April and May 2027
• Other sites: Vandenberg, Starbase, Kourou and Wenchang for January 2027, and the full launch calendar

To hear before a launch, set a free reminder on our launch schedule, for every crewed launch, every Moon mission or every launch worldwide.

Sources

All accessed November 8, 2026.

• NASA: "NASA Marches Toward Artemis III Mission in 2027, Names Crew Members" (June 9, 2026)
• SpacePolicyOnline: "NASA is Full Steam Ahead on Artemis III, IV and V" (Marcia Smith, October 23, 2026)
• The Space Review: "Dodging bullets and firing blanks" (Jeff Foust, October 26, 2026)
• NASA: "NASA Provides Progress Update on Moon Base Rovers" (October 20, 2026)
• Space.com: "Astrobotic unveils Griffin-1 lunar lander for NASA Moon Base mission" (Josh Dinner, June 15, 2026)
• Boeing: Starliner-1 mission updates (update of September 28, 2026) and Boeing: quarterly report on Form 10-Q (filed October 27, 2026)
• Axiom Space: Axiom Mission 5
• Vast: Haven-1 and Payload: "Vast Delays Haven-1 Launch to 2027" (Jacqueline Feldscher, January 20, 2026)
• Ars Technica: "Rocket Report: Artemis II literally tore through the atmosphere; New Glenn delay" (Stephen Clark, November 6, 2026)
• Rocket Lab: "Rocket Lab Provides Update on Neutron Development and Adjusts Target Launch Timing" (Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K, October 14, 2026) and Rocket Lab: Neutron
• Firefly Aerospace: Eclipse
• Xinhua via SCIO: "China's Long March-10 passes key tests, paving way for future rocket reuses" (February 14, 2026)
• ESA: Plato
• NASA: COSI
• Space.com: "China previews how powerful its new Xuntian space telescope will be ahead of 2027 launch (video)" (Andrew Jones, January 19, 2026)
• Amazon: Amazon Leo launch updates (updated October 28, 2026) and FCC Space Bureau: Order DA 26-553 on Amazon Leo's deployment milestone (June 5, 2026)
• The Register: "Amazon Leo's satellite homework is late, but FCC won't flunk it just yet" (Dan Robinson, June 8, 2026)
• Launch Library 2: launches listed for 2027 (used to find missions; each date above is from the agency, company or outlet named)
• AST SpaceMobile: Blacklift announcement (Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K, November 6, 2026)