NASA added a new mission to its Artemis moon program involving a spacecraft docking test in Earth's orbit before landing its first astronauts on the moon in over half a century, overhauling the flagship U.S. moon effort amid competitive pressure from China. Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin are each developing an astronaut lunar lander for the program, dueling to be the first to achieve the moon landing for NASA. The new mission allows more practice for NASA before its more ambitious step of landing on the moon, which had long been planned for Artemis III. The agency launched an uncrewed test of SLS and Orion in 2022 and is targeting an April launch of Artemis II, taking four astronauts around the moon and back. The updated Artemis III mission will involve Orion, with astronauts aboard, demonstrating its ability to dock with one or both of the lunar landers in low-Earth orbit.

Source: The Telegraph February 27, 2026 18:55 UTC