Lunar Week: NASA redraws its Moon landing routes and details the Artemis III test flight

This week on the Moon

No lunar launches or landings are scheduled for October 26 to November 1. The Launch Library 2 schedule lists four launches that week, none of them bound for the Moon.

October's full moon, the Hunter's Moon, is full at 04:12 UTC on October 26 (12:12 a.m. EDT), according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. Space.com noted that skywatchers in the U.S. see it rise in the east at sunset on October 25. The Moon reaches last quarter at 20:28 UTC on November 1.^[1]

United States

On October 23 NASA set out new routes for its two crewed lunar landers. SpaceX's Starship lander will dock with Orion in Earth orbit and then fire its engines to send the joined spacecraft to low lunar orbit. Blue Origin will launch three transfer stages and its Blue Moon Mark 2 lander to low Earth orbit, dock them, and send the stack to an elliptical polar orbit around the Moon, where Orion will meet it. Both replace the earlier plan to meet in a near-rectilinear halo orbit, and NASA said it will choose which company lands astronauts first, in 2028, based on lander readiness. New Space Economy reported that the Blue Moon plan calls for four New Glenn launches.^[2]

At the same briefing, Administrator Jared Isaacman and other NASA leaders described the path to returning Americans to the lunar surface in 2028. NASA said Artemis III will send four astronauts, Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio, Andre Douglas and ESA's Luca Parmitano, to low Earth orbit in 2027 on a planned 14-day mission to dock with test versions of Blue Origin's and SpaceX's landers. Space.com reported that NASA is targeting summer 2027 but that the exact launch date remains unclear, and SpacePolicyOnline.com reported that officials still expect Artemis III in mid-2027. NASA said on October 13 that its SLS rocket will roll to Launch Pad 39B for a propellant-loading test in the coming months.^[3][4][5]

A day earlier, on October 22, NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel held its fourth quarterly meeting of 2026. SpacePolicyOnline.com reported that the panel raised concerns about plans for Artemis IV and beyond, including lander readiness, the requirement for only one uncrewed landing test per provider, and the first use of cryogenic propellants on the Moon. SatNews reported that the panel will submit a formal recommendation asking NASA to re-examine Artemis IV mission objectives and system architectures. At the October 23 briefing, NASA officials projected confidence in their plans, SpacePolicyOnline.com reported.^[5][6]

On October 21 NASA hot-fired RS-25 engine No. 10001 for about 500 seconds at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, reaching 111% power, to acceptance test flight components for future Artemis missions and validate a new nozzle thermal protection system.

China

Nothing new for China in our data this week.

Elsewhere

JAXA's mission page lists the launch of LUPEX, its joint lunar polar mission with India's ISRO, on an H3 rocket as "No earlier than 2028". The Launch Library 2 database updated its LUPEX record on October 23 and now also shows 2028.^[8]

ESA reported on October 22 that a scaled model of Loader, a lunar cargo crane developed by Romania's COMOTI with Initium Space, was tested in its Planetary Robotics Laboratory in the Netherlands. The model lifts 30 kg under Earth gravity, which ESA said equals a little over 180 kg on the Moon; the full-size crane is designed to lift up to 1,000 kg off a lander such as Argonaut and place it up to six metres away.

Tracker check

As of October 11, the tracker shows the United States at 3.5 of 8 rungs and China at 1.75 of 8 on the crewed landing ladder, with the status "United States leads on demonstrated milestones". Its official targets are "2028 (NASA target: early 2028) for Artemis IV" for the United States and "Before 2030 (2030年前)" for China.^[9][10]

On the permanent presence ladder the tracker shows China at 1.25 of 8 rungs and the United States at 1 of 8, with the status "Level on demonstrated milestones", and it rates who lands people first as "Too close to call". The tracker's data was last reviewed against sources on October 11, so it predates this week's NASA announcements.^[9][10]