Artemis 3 Moon landing postponed to 2028

The Artemis 3 mission, which is set to be the next human landing on the Moon, has been pushed back a year due to delays in testing SpaceX’s Starship rocket. According to an internal company document published by Politico, the new schedule will see astronauts land no earlier than September 2028 instead of the previously planned date.

The orbital refueling demonstration between two Starship ships is now expected to be no earlier than June 2026, and the unmanned lunar landing is now expected to be in June 2027. Thus, the first manned attempt is possible only after successfully completing all stages of testing.

Artemis 3 will be the first human landing on the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. The previous mission, Artemis 2, which involves a non-landing orbit around the Moon, is scheduled for no earlier than February 2026. Artemis 1, launched in November 2022, was unmanned. The new schedule means the Artemis program is now moving at about one mission every two years, much slower than the Apollo of the 1960s.

Starship is a next-generation superheavy reusable rocket. Since its first launch in 2023, SpaceX has achieved several important milestones, including successfully catching the Super Heavy booster using mechanical grippers on the launch tower. In 2025, only two of the five Starship launches were relatively successful, the rest ended in the loss of the upper stage. Progress is being seen in tests of the Block 2 version with soft reentry and booster restarts.

To land on the Moon as part of Artemis 3, Starship will have to refuel in orbit up to 12 times. After that, the ship will be able to land, take off and connect with the Orion capsule, which will return the astronauts to Earth.