THE NEW SPACE RACE: When will SpaceX and Blue Origin fly to the moon? NASA reveals lunar lander timelines.

A more pressing deadline, however, is NASA’s Artemis III mission, which is targeted for the third quarter (Q3) of 2027. Artemis III will launch four astronauts aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft to low Earth orbit (LEO), where they will rendezvous and dock with test versions of both companies’ landers for interoperability checkouts. Those demonstrations will help inform NASA’s determination about which lander the agency will choose to carry astronauts to the moon’s surface on Artemis IV, targeted for early 2028.

SpaceX and Blue Origin were both awarded NASA contracts to develop HLS vehicles — Starship and Blue Moon, respectively — and have spent the past several years refining their respective lunar lander designs and dealing with various delays along the way. In the face of those delays, and in an effort to better structure its mission progression for success, NASA overhauled its Artemis program architecture in February to maintain its goal of landing astronauts on the moon by the end of 2028 and establish a more regular cadence of uncrewed landings in the meantime.

It was just a year or two ago I’d grown pessimistic on our chances of beating China to the Moon in the New Space Race, but Isaacman is really shaking things up at NASA.