Artemis 2 enchanted the world in the beginning of April, when its crew of four astronauts flew a 10-day mission around the moon and back to Earth. It was the first human spaceflight of the agency's Artemis program, and the first crewed moon mission in more than half a century.
Part of that vision includes increasing how often NASA launches Artemis' Space Launch System (SLS) rocket — with the goal of shortening the gap between missions from a few years to about 10 months. (There was a 3.5-year gap between Artemis 1 and Artemis 2.) Artemis 3 also got a complete redesign, from the program's first lunar landing mission to an Earth-orbit rendezvous and docking-only demonstration between Orion and the program's privately developed lunar landers. Now, it seems those landers may have a hard time hitting NASA's 10-month cadence target.
Isaacman testified before the House Appropriations Committee on Monday (April 27), answering lawmakers' questions regarding the White House's 2027 budget request for NASA, which allocates $2.8 billion for the Artemis Human Landing System contracts — the program's lunar lander vehicles. NASA has partnered with SpaceX and Blue Origin to design and manufacture those landers to deliver astronauts to the lunar surface, which it hopes to do for the first time on the Artemis 4 and Artemis 5 missions in 2028.
Before the landers — SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's Blue Moon — graduate to those missions, though, NASA wants them to operate in tandem with Artemis' Orion crew capsule in orbit around Earth. The agency has indicated a willingness to fly with whatever spacecraft is ready when Artemis 3's time comes.
During the hearing on Monday, Congressman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), chairman emeritus of the committee, asked Isaacman about his confidence that Artemis 3 would remain on schedule, given the amount of money allocated for the mission's landers.
"I've received responses from both vendors," Isaacman said, "to meet our needs for a late 2027 rendezvous, docking and test [of] the interoperability of both landers in advance of a landing attempt in 2028."
That's a shift from Isaacman's statements during his Feb. 27 Artemis strategy presentation, during which he said, "Artemis 3 will have its opportunity, if we can, by mid-2027, which sets us up for an early '28 and a late '28 opportunity [for Artemis 4 and 5]."
A late 2027 target for Artemis 3 puts both HLS companies on an even tighter timeline to ready their spacecraft for a crewed mission to the lunar surface in 2028. Docking with Orion is only one of many milestones the landers must meet before NASA will certify either lander to fly astronauts.
Starship and Blue Moon both run on cryogenically cooled propellants, which, without proper refrigeration, boil off as vented gas over time, and NASA is shaping the Artemis missions to last much longer than the handful of days spent on the lunar surface during the Apollo era. In addition, in order to make the journey to the moon's surface, then back to lunar orbit to transport crews back to Orion, both landers will require multiple refueling launches to top off their tanks while still in Earth orbit. And cryogenic fuel transfer between vehicles is yet another capability that no craft have ever tested in space.
NASA also wants SpaceX and Blue Origin to fully demonstrate successful uncrewed touchdowns on the moon, and liftoffs back to lunar orbit, before entrusting the lives of astronauts aboard the landers.
As of now, both companies are still in the early-to-mid stages of testing their lander designs. SpaceX's Starship is nearing the first launch of its Version 3 (V3) prototype vehicle, which will be the massive vehicle's 12th overall test flight. The taller, more powerful spacecraft features SpaceX's new Raptor 3 engine design, and is expected to bring improvements over a mixed bag of launch test successes and failures last year.
SpaceX has goals for Starship beyond Artemis, though, and isn't designing the vehicle for just the moon. CEO Elon Musk is an outspoken proponent of transitioning humanity into a multiplanetary species, and has long touted Starship as the answer. The spacecraft, supported by SpaceX's 33-engine Super Heavy booster, is designed for full reusability, and stands as the cornerstone of the company's Mars settlement plans.
Blue Origin, on the other hand, is taking its usual reserved approach compared to SpaceX's iterative design implementations. Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark-1 (Mk1) vehicle has yet to launch to space, but did recently complete vacuum chamber testing at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Now, the vehicle is back at Blue Origin's Rocket Park facility in Cape Canaveral for final work before a test launch later this year. Blue Origin just hit a bump in the road toward that liftoff, however — an anomaly experienced by its New Glenn rocket during its most recent liftoff. New Glenn will launch Mk1's debut mission, and it's unclear when the rocket will be cleared to fly again.
Another critically missing item on the two landers' shared list is life support. Neither company's current build is designed to support astronauts aboard. So far, Starship has launched carrying a small suite of Starlink satellite mass simulator payloads — not an astronaut-friendly interior. And the Blue Moon Mk1 is a cargo variant of the lander that will later support a crew — but how much later is the question.
Isaacman and the Artemis 2 astronauts appeared with President Donald Trump for a press conference in the Oval Office on Wednesday (April 29). "We have a shot at it," Trump said, responding to a reporter who asked if he thought a crewed moon landing mission would happen during his current term, which will officially end in January 2029.
"We don't like to say 'definitely,' because then you'll say, 'Oh, we failed, we failed,'" Trump added. "I think we could say we're ahead of schedule. So, we have a good shot."
He then looked to Isaacman for confirmation.
"Yes, Mr. President. We have an achievable plan now, back to the moon, and we're back in the business of launching moon rockets with frequency," Isaacman said. "We just sent Artemis 2 around the moon. We're going to launch Artemis 3 in 2027. We'll protect for two opportunities in 2028 to return astronauts to the surface of the moon."
