What is Nasa's Artemis III mission? And what comes next?

Artemis III has been described by Nasa as the most complicated mission it's ever attempted.

It involves four astronauts, three rocket launches, three different spacecraft and two dockings. It will last for 14 days, although it could be extended to 17 days if needed.

The first rocket to launch will be Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, blasting off from Florida. It will be carrying its prototype lander called Blue Moon. No astronauts will be on board and the lander will be placed into low Earth orbit.

Then Nasa's Space Launch System rocket will launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying four Artemis III astronauts in the Orion capsule. This is the same type of rocket and spacecraft used for the Artemis II mission, which saw astronauts fly around the Moon and back to Earth.

Orion will also be placed into orbit around the Earth, and the crew will spend two days checking out their spacecraft.

Then on day three of its flight, Orion will dock with the Blue Origin's Blue Moon. The crew will open the hatch and enter the lander, where they will spend two days checking out its systems.

On flight day six, SpaceX's huge Starship rocket will blast off, also from Florida. The upper stage of its rocket, called "the Ship" is the prototype lander (although it has not yet been fitted out as a lander and lacks life support systems) and this will be placed in low Earth orbit.

Nasa's Orion spacecraft and its crew will undock from the Blue Moon lander and then dock with the SpaceX Ship. This will be a shorter demonstration lasting for two hours, and the Artemis III crew will not enter the SpaceX lander.

Once undocked, the Orion crew will spend the rest of their mission carrying out additional tests of their capsule and carrying out science experiments, before returning home.

The overarching ambition behind Artemis is to establish a long-term human presence on the Moon. Nasa's Moon Base programme — unveiled in May 2026 by the agency's administrator, Jared Isaacman — sets out three phases:

• Before 2029: robotic landers and hopping drones will survey the south polar region and deliver scientific instruments

• From 2029 onwards: repeated crewed missions will expand the site

• By the mid-2030s: Nasa envisages "semi-permanent" habitats with astronauts living on the Moon for extended stays

A working base would allow sustained scientific research, the testing of technology bound for future Mars missions, and the eventual extraction of lunar resources. It would also keep the United States ahead of China in a renewed space race.

Many in the field doubt that Nasa's timetable can be met.

Experts are concerned about the slow pace of the development of SpaceX's Starship lunar lander and the absence of any in-orbit refuelling tests.

But the biggest set back was on 28 May 2026, when Blue Origin's only launch pad at Cape Canaveral was seriously damaged after a rocket exploded during an engine test.

Rebuilding the New Glenn launch pad is expected to take many months. When SpaceX lost a pad in 2016 it took 15 months to rebuild it — and SpaceX had other pads to fall back on.

Blue Origin does not, which calls into question the company's ability to provide the Blue Moon Mk2 needed for one of the lunar landings.

"It would not surprise me at all if China gets [to the moon] first," the Open University's Dr Simeon Barber told the BBC. The limiting step, he said, was the lander — the most challenging piece of the mission's technical architecture, and the one least under Nasa's direct control.