Artemis III Mission Restructured to Earth Orbit; Lunar Landing Pushed to 2028

NASA restructured Artemis III into a low-Earth orbit demonstration mission, pushing the crewed lunar landing to Artemis IV in 2028. The two-week flight requires three coordinated launches involving Blue Origin’s New Glenn, NASA’s SLS, and SpaceX’s Super Heavy. A four-person crew inside an Orion capsule will dock with both the Blue Moon Mark 2 lander and a SpaceX Starship HLS vehicle to validate hardware, software, and crew transfer procedures. Ground teams will simultaneously test launch processing, control centers, and data networks.