NASA and its commercial human landing system partners, Blue Origin and SpaceX, have streamlined lander designs and revised how the vehicles will operate, the agency reported on Oct. 23, 2026, as it targets a crewed lunar landing in 2028. Artemis III has been redefined to demonstrate rendezvous and docking between test versions of each company's lander and the Orion spacecraft in low Earth orbit next year, while crew and cargo landers are developed in parallel.

Under the revised plans, landers and Orion will no longer meet in a near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon; each partner will instead use an orbit informed by its own systems. Both companies must fly an uncrewed demonstration of their crewed landers before near-term crewed missions, and NASA will certify the systems beforehand. SpaceX will continue aggregating cryogenic propellant in low Earth orbit and will have Starship await Orion in Earth orbit, while Blue Origin will defer propellant transfer and use three transfer stages to send its Blue Moon Mark 2 lander toward an elliptical polar orbit.

NASA said it will decide, based on lander readiness, which company first delivers astronauts to the lunar surface and back in 2028, with a second crewed landing to follow. Initial surface missions target two Moonwalks of roughly two hours each. Under the realigned contracts, neither provider is assigned to a specific Artemis lunar landing mission.