Intro
Intro
More than 50 years have passed since humans last set foot on the moon. Now, NASA is planning to return — but its next lunar landing could look very different.
Aiming to pull off more complex missions than in the Apollo era, NASA enlisted Elon Musk’s SpaceX to construct a lander like no other …
Apollo's bold, unruly and controversial successor
A visual guide to the audacious plan that put SpaceX and NASA in the hot seat — and has experts worried the US could lose the new moon race
Published November 14, 2025
Artemis III is NASA’s mission intended to return astronauts to the moon. The plan has been to use SpaceX’s still-experimental Starship — the most powerful rocket system ever built — for the last leg of the journey to the lunar surface.
However, explosive setbacks have pockmarked Starship’s development, and the vehicle’s gargantuan size and unprecedented design present formidable engineering challenges that could take more than a decade to solve. That could complicate the space agency’s goal to conduct Artemis III just a year or so after Artemis II, a crewed mission to circumnavigate the moon slated to take off in early 2026.
Fearing China may reach the moon first, NASA recently signaled that it is considering sidelining Starship from the project and perhaps expediting development of an alternative lunar lander.
But it’s not clear whether the space agency has the money or the time to pursue a new spacecraft.
The race is on
RACE TO THE MOON: A RADICAL PATH
The path to the moon laid out with Starship is as strange as it is audacious. It requires potentially dozens of rocket launches, docking multiple spacecraft in orbit, and even transferring fuel mid-flight — all to accomplish a single lunar touchdown.
Note: The following animations are not to scale, and details such as flight paths are simplified to give an illustrative overview of the mission design.
1 - In the 1970s, the Apollo missions launched astronauts to the moon with just one rocket. But this time around …
2 - … NASA and SpaceX must first prepare a refueling depot, essentially an orbital gas station, in space before the astronauts take flight.
3 - The Starship rocket system splits in two after takeoff. The upper spacecraft would head to Earth orbit to serve as that depot, ready to carry nothing but fuel. The towering Super Heavy rocket booster, meanwhile, would return to the launch site so it can be reused.
4 - Multiple Starship fuel tanker flights would then need to launch to aggregate enough propellant for a moon landing — it’s not clear how many. Estimates have suggested the number is between 10 and 40, CNN has reported. Transferring cryogenic propellants, the type of fuel Starship needs, in orbit has never been attempted before.
5 - Once the fuel depot is filled up, the Starship lunar lander would launch and head toward the gas station.
6 - The lunar lander would dock with the fuel depot and top off its propellant.
7 - Now fully loaded with fuel, the Starship lander begins its flight to the moon.
1 - Meanwhile, four astronauts would launch from Kennedy Space Center aboard an Orion spacecraft, which lifts off atop NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. This part of the mission plan uses only NASA hardware. SpaceX is not involved.
2 - This approach is far different from that of the Apollo era, when the astronauts launched to space with everything they needed onboard with them — including a lunar lander. Artemis III, however, requires more powerful vehicles that must launch separately.
3 - After launch, as the SLS rocket burns through fuel, pieces of the launch vehicle separate from Orion — a common tactic to lighten the load and save fuel.
4 - Orion, carrying the astronauts, would continue on a three-day flight to the moon. The crew would keep busy with research and experimental tasks on the way.
5 - During the Apollo missions, astronauts took a more direct route to the moon. But for Artemis III, the crew’s Orion capsule must make a pit stop in lunar orbit to dock with the Starship lunar lander.
6 - Docking in lunar orbit, two astronauts would move from Orion to Starship.
7 - The Orion capsule would remain in lunar orbit while the two astronauts aboard Starship descend to the moon. If all goes as NASA hopes, this would mark the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.
8 - For about a week, the crew is expected to explore and conduct research around the landing site in the moon’s south pole region. Experts believe this area is home to stores of water ice, a valuable in-space resource.
9 - With their roughly weeklong stay complete, the two astronauts would take off from the moon aboard the Starship lunar lander.
1 - Back in lunar orbit, Starship would once again dock with Orion, and the astronauts transfer back to the capsule for their journey home. At this point, Starship’s job is complete.
2 - Orion, with all four astronauts once again on board together, would then depart lunar orbit and head home.
3 - As it approaches the thick inner band of Earth’s atmosphere, Orion ditches its service module and prepares for a splashdown landing.
4 - When Orion hits the atmosphere, it would still be traveling at more than 30 times the speed of sound, heating up the exterior to about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
5 - Orion would then splash down in the Pacific Ocean, where astronauts will be welcomed onto a recovery ship.
Dueling landers
China: A fierce competitor
While NASA’s existing Artemis III plan may seem unnecessarily convoluted, in reality, the space agency cannot — and does not wish to — repeat the simplicity of Apollo.
To reach the lunar south pole and work alongside Orion, which must use a long looping orbit around the moon because of its hefty size, NASA needs a far more powerful lunar lander than the ones used by astronauts a half-century ago.
Alternative proposals for the Artemis III lunar lander, which were reviewed by CNN, also involve launching multiple rockets for tasks such as in-space refueling. That could mean that, even if NASA were to ditch SpaceX, the agency still might not be in a good position to beat China to its planned 2030 moon landing.
And China is a fierce competitor, experts say. The country’s space agency is spending untold billions of dollars on its efforts.
Details shared by state-run media indicate China is pursuing a relatively streamlined approach, aiming to send its astronauts to the lunar south pole with the launch of just two rockets — one for an astronaut capsule and the other for a lunar lander.
Little is known about China’s exact plans and progress.
“One of the challenges with China is there’s no transparency,” former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told CNN. “But what we do know is that when they give themselves milestones, they hit them.”
