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Sunday, October 25, 2026

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NASA · Sunday, October 25, 2026

NASA rewrites how astronauts will reach the Moon in 2028

The File desk · Oct. 25, 2026, 6:41 a.m. ET

Confirmed2 primary sources

Status

Confirmed from NASA's article of Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, on the revised Artemis lander plan. Which company lands first, and the dates for next year's docking test, are not set in the article.
  • Confirmed
    NASA says the landers will no longer meet Orion in a halo orbit around the Moon. Each company gets a closer meeting point, aimed at a 2028 landing.
  • Confirmed
    NASA says it will pick the first landing company by readiness. The article does not name the winner.
NASA said Friday that astronauts heading for a 2028 Moon landing will no longer switch from Orion to the lander in a distant orbit around the Moon. The lander and Orion will meet closer in, on a path that differs for SpaceX and for Blue Origin. NASA has not said which company flies the first crew to the surface.1
The agency has redefined Artemis III, the next crewed flight, as a test in low Earth orbit next year: practice versions of each company's lander will rendezvous and dock with Orion. For the landing missions, the landers and Orion will no longer meet in a near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon. They will meet in an orbit chosen for each company's hardware. Two astronauts would then go to the surface. Two would stay on Orion. NASA says both companies must fly an uncrewed demonstration of the crewed lander before a crew goes.1
Under the revision, SpaceX's Starship lander waits for Orion and the crew in Earth orbit. They dock there. Starship then fires to send the joined vehicles toward low lunar orbit. NASA says it is modifying Orion so Starship can push it to the Moon. Blue Origin, for its faster 2028 plan, will skip moving propellant between ships and will use three transfer stages to send the Blue Moon Mark 2 Alpha lander to the Moon. That lander meets Orion in an elliptical polar orbit around the Moon.2
Why it matters (Estimate). The meeting place is the risky handoff: the moment astronauts leave the ship NASA already knows and board a lander still in development. Moving that handoff closer to Earth, and letting each company use the orbit its hardware can actually fly, is NASA's way of trying to land a crew in 2028 without waiting for the harder Moon orbit. The race between SpaceX and Blue Origin is now explicit: the first landing goes to whichever lander is ready, not to a slot assigned years ago.
NASA says it will choose the first company to land a crew in 2028 based on which lander is ready, and that a second crewed landing will follow. Initial surface trips are planned as two moonwalks of about two hours each. Administrator Jared Isaacman said the agency is building what he called a Super Bowl-caliber team to do the work safely. The dates for the low-Earth-orbit test next year are not in the article. An Oct. 14 NASA advisory had set Friday's briefing, and the earlier story is unchanged except for a note pointing here.3
How we know

Notes

  1. 1.NASA, “NASA, Partners Accelerate Lander Development for 2028 Moon Missions,” Oct. 23, 2026, by Corinne Beckinger. https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/nasa-partners-accelerate-lander-development-for-2028-moon-missions/ “the agency has redefined Artemis III to demonstrate rendezvous and docking capabilities between test versions of landers from each provider and the agency’s Orion spacecraft in low Earth orbit next year.” “To accelerate development toward a 2028 landing, the Artemis landers and Orion will no longer rendezvous in a near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon and instead meet up in an orbit that differs for each partner, informed by their systems.” “Both companies are required to perform an uncrewed demonstration mission with their crewed landers prior to the near-term Artemis crewed missions to the Moon.” Companion page, same afternoon: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/nasas-artemis-iii-mission-to-test-future-moon-lander-operations/
  2. 2.Same article. SpaceX: “Under the revised operations, Starship HLS will await Orion and its crew in Earth orbit. The lander and Orion will rendezvous and dock in Earth orbit, then the Starship lander will perform a trans-lunar injection burn to send the combined lander and Orion stack to low lunar orbit. NASA is working to modify Orion to enable Starship to push it to the Moon.” Blue Origin: “Blue Origin will defer propellant transfer and use three transfer stages to send the Blue Moon Mark 2 Alpha Lander to the Moon.” The lander meets Orion in an elliptical polar orbit. The article also says that under the original contracts Starship was assigned to Artemis III and IV and Blue Origin to Artemis V, and that neither company is now assigned to a specific landing mission.
  3. 3.Same article. “Ultimately, based on lander readiness, NASA will determine which company will be first selected to safely deliver astronauts to the Moon’s surface and back to lunar orbit in 2028. A second crewed landing opportunity will follow.” “NASA is targeting two, approximately two-hour long lunar surface Moonwalks during initial surface missions.” Jared Isaacman: “We are building a Super Bowl-caliber team to safely achieve these objectives and everything that comes next.” The Oct. 14 advisory is a separate story, “NASA sets an Oct. 23 briefing on Moon plans.” Diagrams on the page include images credited to NASA and artist concepts credited to SpaceX and to Blue Origin. This story does not reproduce them.

What is still unknown or disputed

  • The dates for the Artemis III docking tests next year. Not in the article.
  • Which company NASA will pick to land first.
  • When the contract changes were signed. The article says the contracts were updated earlier this year and does not give the day.

Primary sources

Every claim in this story is drawn from the documents below. If a fetch failed, that is recorded on the card.

  1. Source 1

    NASA, Partners Accelerate Lander Development for 2028 Moon Missions

    NASA · October 23, 2026

    NASA says the landers and Orion will meet in an orbit chosen for each company, instead of a halo orbit around the Moon, to aim at a 2028 landing.

    https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/nasa-partners-accelerate-lander-development-for-2028-moon-missions/

  2. Source 2

    NASA's Artemis III Mission to Test Future Moon Lander Operations

    NASA · October 23, 2026

    A companion NASA article the same afternoon on the Artemis III test of lander operations.

    https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/nasas-artemis-iii-mission-to-test-future-moon-lander-operations/