Hi friends! 👋 If you’ve been following along, you know Artemis III changed a lot in October. It’s no longer a Moon landing. Now it’s a practice mission in Earth orbit with two different landers. This weekend NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman added a rule that I think matters a lot for the schedule: SLS doesn’t fly until Blue Moon is up.
Three rockets, three companies, one carefully ordered mission
In a long interview with NASASpaceFlight, Isaacman walked through the order of launches:
- New Glenn launches first, carrying a test version of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 2 lander. NASA says it can wait in orbit for up to about 30 days.
- SLS and Orion launch next from Kennedy with four astronauts, but only after the lander is healthy and checked out.
- Starship launches later in the roughly two-week mission for a shorter docking test.
“We’re not going to launch without Blue Origin in it,” Isaacman said. “That’s why they’re going to launch first.” He also put it this way: “You’re committed once SLS goes. So Blue has got to go in order to trigger SLS.”
That makes sense to me. You only get one shot with an SLS, so you don’t want astronauts in orbit waiting for a lander that hasn’t shown up.
What the crew will actually do
According to NASA’s mission overview, Orion docks with Blue Moon for about two days. The crew opens the hatch, goes inside, and checks the life support, controls and software. After that, Orion undocks, and a Starship Version 3 test article launches from Florida with a docking system on its nose. Orion docks with Starship for up to two hours. This time the crew stays in Orion. 🛰️
Isaacman said the most important lessons will probably come from the Blue Origin side, because the company has never kept people alive in space beyond New Shepard’s short suborbital hops.
The bottleneck: the lander
When NASASpaceFlight asked him what’s driving the schedule, Isaacman didn’t hold back: “For sure, the lander. We don’t have a fully assembled Blue test article yet.” He also said Blue Origin is making real progress. NASASpaceFlight reports that hull welding on the test article is expected to finish around January 2027.
New Glenn also has to come back first. Blue Origin is still recovering from the pad explosion at Launch Complex 36 in May. On October 24 the company said its rebuilt Vehicle Access Tower is fully restacked, and it’s aiming to fly again by the end of this year. That’s a target, not a promise, so I’m treating it as unofficial until there’s a date.
Isaacman also said NASA is fine with a small delay if it helps the mission learn more. “If it means slipping another month to put something else in the Blue Origin lander… that’s something we’d want to get out of it.”
“This is our Apollo 9”
My favorite part of the interview was the history. Apollo 9 tested the lunar module in Earth orbit before anyone tried to land. Isaacman said NASA would insist on that kind of rehearsal “even if the landers were ready right now.” He also described how hands-on NASA has gotten. The agency sent hundreds of people to help Blue Origin recover its pad (including welders) and used C-17 cargo planes to fly big lander domes from the West Coast to Florida.
My take 💫
Three heavy-lift rockets, all from my own Space Coast, flying one crewed mission? I’m already planning which bridge I’ll be standing on. 😄 Yes, I’m a SpaceX girl through and through, but I’m cheering hard for Blue Origin here. Their lander now decides when the whole mission can go. If you want the background on Blue Moon itself, check out my full lander guide.
NASA hasn’t set an official Artemis III launch date. The agency has only said “next year” (2027). I’ll keep you posted as soon as the hardware starts moving!
— The Star Queen 👑
Sources
- NASASpaceFlight: Isaacman outlines Artemis III multi-launch checkout sequence and Blue Origin priority (Chris Bergin, Oct. 31, 2026)
- NASA: NASA’s Artemis III Mission to Test Future Moon Lander Operations
- NASA: NASA, Partners Accelerate Lander Development for 2028 Moon Missions (Oct. 23, 2026)
- NASASpaceFlight: Blue Origin attempts end of year return and eyes Artemis IV selection
- Space.com: NASA lays out plan for Artemis 3 moon-lander test flight
Image: NASA/Brandon Hancock.