Overview
- NASA confirmed Wednesday it will fly Artemis III’s SLS with an inert spacer instead of the ICPS, locking the mission to a low Earth orbit rehearsal in 2027.
- At Kennedy Space Center, technicians have raised the Artemis III core stage into the Vehicle Assembly Building’s High Bay 2 to begin vertical assembly.
- The flight will coordinate three launches to bring Orion, a SpaceX Starship pathfinder, and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon pathfinder into the same orbit for rendezvous and docking tests.
- Orion’s European service module will circularize to roughly 463 kilometers at 33 degrees, with crews expected to spend longer in orbit and test the spacecraft’s first docking and an upgraded heat shield.
- Spacer fabrication is underway at NASA’s Marshall center, key choices like crew selection, lander ingress, spacesuit checks, and non-DSN communications remain open, and reserving the last ICPS for Artemis IV supports a 2028 first landing.