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| Attribute | Starship HLS Artemis III LEO Demo → Artemis IV Crewed Landing Trust: Agency-primary Last verified Remove × | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | SpaceX | CNSA | Blue Origin |
| Prime contractor | SpaceX | China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) | Blue Origin |
| Status | In development | Landed | In development |
| Customer | NASA-HLS | CNSA | NASA-CLPS |
| Launch date | Late 2027 (NET — Artemis III crewed LEO docking demo); first crewed landing Artemis IV (~2028) | 2024-05-03 | Delayed indefinitely (was NET 2026-07) — New Glenn grounded |
| Landing date | — | 2024-06-01 | — |
| Landing site | Lunar south pole (NASA-curated candidate region near 84-90°S) — first surface use Artemis IV | Apollo crater, South Pole-Aitken Basin (lunar far side) | Lunar south pole region |
| Payload | ~100 tonnes to lunar surface (sustained variant target) (2024-04-16) | 1,935.3 g of lunar far-side regolith returned to Earth (2024-06-25) | 3,000 kg surface payload capacity (21,350 kg wet lander mass) (2026-05-28) |
| Contract value | $2.89B + $1.15B Option B = $4.04B total (2022-11-15) | — | — |
| Outcome | Selected April 2021 as sole HLS provider for Artemis III. Architecture requires Super Heavy launch + multiple Starship tanker refueling flights in LEO + transit to NRHO + rendezvous with Orion (SLS). NASA OIG IG-26-004 (March 2026) flagged crew-rescue capability as open risk. October 2025: NASA acting administrator Sean Duffy reopened the Artemis III lander contract to competition due to Starship development pace. In 2026 NASA redefined Artemis III as a crewed HLS docking demonstration in Earth orbit (late 2027 NET), naming the crew — Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano, Frank Rubio, and Andre Douglas — on June 9, 2026; the first crewed lunar landing moved to Artemis IV (~2028). | First-ever sample return from the lunar far side and the South Pole-Aitken Basin. Used the Queqiao-2 relay satellite for far-side comms. Samples revealed unexpectedly cohesive grain behavior and excavated material from the Moon's mantle. | First flight test of Blue Moon Mark 1. Carries NASA CLPS Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies + Laser Retroreflective Array. Targets 100 m landing precision. Lander completed full-scale thermal-vacuum testing at NASA Plum Brook (Armstrong Test Facility) May 2026 — but the mission is delayed indefinitely: its New Glenn launch vehicle has been grounded since the NG-3 failure on 2026-04-19, and another New Glenn was destroyed in a pre-launch static-fire explosion at LC-36 on 2026-05-28. |
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Underlying dataset: GET /api/moon/landers. Methodology: /moon/methodology.