NASA says it will conduct the Artemis III demonstration mission in 2027 ahead of the first Artemis astronauts landing on the Moon in 2028. The 2027 mission is designed to give teams on the ground and in orbit practice for critical operations involving rendezvous and docking between commercial human landing systems and NASA’s Orion spacecraft. NASA describes the effort as a way to validate procedures and improve confidence for later crewed lunar missions by generating operational data that can be used to support safety and mission success.
The agency also points to additional planned uncrewed demonstration missions at the Moon, which are intended to further test systems and approaches in the lunar environment before astronauts land. Together, the 2027 Artemis III demonstration and subsequent uncrewed lunar demonstrations provide staged checkpoints—first focusing on spacecraft interactions around the Moon and then adding Moon-surface related testing—to reduce risk for the 2028 crewed landing target.
