NASA provides some details about Artemis III, but hard decisions remain

NASA is moving quickly to define next year's Artemis III mission in Earth orbit, a crewed flight that will test rendezvous and docking capabilities between the agency's Orion spacecraft and commercial landers from Blue Origin and SpaceX, ensuring the test flight helps reduce risk ahead of the next Americans landing on the Moon during Artemis IV. As of April 2026, NASA has not finalized whether it would dock with one or both HLS vehicles, with decisions dependent in part on the development progress and launch cadence of commercial partners. Over the coming weeks, NASA will continue to refine specific plans for the flight, including a timeline for identifying astronauts to train for mission operations, options to evaluate Axiom's AxEMU spacesuit lander interfaces ahead of lunar surface missions, mission duration, and potential science operations for the flight.

Source: Ars Technica | 2026-05-13