The centerpiece of this mission will test the ability of the Artemis III astronauts—who have not yet been named, but could be within the coming months—to fly Orion to one or both of the lunar landers and then dock with the lander.
NASA did something similar during the Apollo program, with the Apollo 9 mission in March 1969. During that mission, two Apollo 9 astronauts entered the Lunar Module and separated from the Apollo Command Module. They performed a number of tasks, including flying up to 9.9 miles below, and 74 miles behind, the Apollo spacecraft before returning and docking again.
How mature will the landers be?
It is unclear, however, how rigorous similar testing will be during Artemis III. The new NASA release states: “Informed by Blue Origin and SpaceX capabilities, NASA also is defining the concept of operations for the mission. While some decisions are yet to be determined, astronauts could potentially enter at least one lander test article.”
This suggests that Artemis III astronauts may not even enter Starship and/or Blue Moon, let alone fire thrusters or separate from Orion.
This sets up a major dilemma for Isaacman and the rest of NASA’s leadership. If they fly Artemis III in 2027, the stated goal, they almost certainly will be rendezvousing with one or two landers that are far short of full maturity. (The NASA release calls them “pathfinders.”) If NASA is contemplating not even having the crew enter the landers, it is possible that neither vehicle will have even basic life support.
This falls short of a well-established maxim in the space industry: test like you fly. The longer NASA waits to fly Artemis III, the better chance it will have to fly with a higher-fidelity vehicle—that is, one closer to landing on the Moon than being a basic prototype. It also increases the likelihood that an Artemis spacesuit, developed by Axiom Space, will be available for testing.
But the longer NASA waits to fly Artemis III, it will likely lose concordance in the schedule for the lunar landing with Artemis IV. And this matters, because when Isaacman says the competition between NASA and China to return humans to the Moon will be decided by “months” rather than “years,” he is not wrong.