Starship Reaches Orbit as Artemis Moon Landing Plan Takes Shape

A month that changed the outlook

The past few weeks have been among the busiest stretches in recent spaceflight. SpaceX put Starship into orbit for the first time. NASA rotated crews on the International Space Station. Hardware for Artemis III is being assembled at Kennedy Space Center, and Europe has started asking how it can stop depending on others to get to space. Each story has its own milestone. Read together, they point to one conclusion: the American return to the Moon now depends less on NASA's own rocket than on whether commercial vehicles can be ready on time.

Starship's first orbit came with problems

On Sept. 28, Starship launched from Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas, on its 14th integrated test flight. It reached orbit for the first time and released an operational batch of 26 upgraded Starlink V3 satellites.21 This was also the first time the vehicle flew a real payload rather than test hardware.26 Spaceflight Now noted the timing: the flight came 18 years after Falcon 1, SpaceX's first rocket, reached orbit. The company said it would not try to recover either stage.24

The flight was not clean, and reports differ on exactly what failed. The Associated Press, via NBC News, reported that one of the upper stage's engines shut down too early. Flight controllers then spent several tense minutes deciding whether to continue toward orbit.25 NPR said one of the ship's six engines failed on the way up and that the team gave the go-ahead about 22 minutes into the flight.27 Next Spaceflight identified the engine as a Raptor Vacuum.26 The New York Times, however, wrote that one of the booster's 33 engines failed.28 CNBC described the booster making a "soft splashdown" and mentioned the upper-stage engine trouble separately.22 Most outlets put the fault in the upper stage, which explains why the flight was shortened. Whether the booster also lost an engine is still unclear in the public record.

The outlets agree on the outcome. The ship was supposed to circle Earth about six times over nearly 10 hours and splash down off South America.24 It came back after fewer than two orbits.28 Next Spaceflight says the mission lasted roughly three hours instead of about ten.26 The ship did reach its intended orbit of about 170 miles, travelling at roughly 17,500 mph. Controllers chose to bring it home early as a precaution.25

The failure tells part of the story. How SpaceX responded tells more. NPR reported that the flight plan included points where Starship could abandon orbit and return safely.27 The Times reported that recovery teams were stationed at both the planned and the early splashdown sites.28 For a vehicle NASA plans to rely on for crewed missions, flying through an engine failure and still delivering the payload counts for more than a perfect run would have. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman praised the company for handling each step safely and responsibly.25

Why the flight matters for the Moon

Starship's importance goes well beyond Starlink. NASA's own description of Artemis III is a crewed test in low Earth orbit, planned for 2027. Astronauts would launch on SLS and Orion and practise rendezvous and docking with one or both commercial landers, from SpaceX and Blue Origin.1 NASA also says Starship's lunar lander variant is planned for Artemis III and Artemis IV.1 Wikipedia's overview of the program says NASA will base its choice of lander for the first landing on how those Artemis III tests go and on how ready each vehicle is.2

NASA's plan was changed earlier this year. Before February 2026, Artemis III was the landing mission. That job has now moved to Artemis IV.2 The timing in public sources is not entirely consistent. NASA says it still targets the first Artemis landing in 2028 and that this goal has held since mid-2025.1 Wikipedia lists Artemis IV for early 2028 and Artemis V for late 2028.2 NASA's page also places Artemis V in 2028 and says the agency then aims for one mission a year.1 If two landings in one calendar year sounds ambitious, that is because it is. It also depends on a lander that, at the end of September, had made only a few hours of orbital flight.

SpaceX is already looking past Texas. Reports say work at Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy is now in the proofing, activation and testing phase. The company plans at least one more flight from Starbase, which would make Flight 16 the earliest likely Florida launch.30 NPR reported a much bigger plan: a proposed $100 billion site in Louisiana with dozens of launch pads, aiming to start launches in 2029.27 CNBC reported that SpaceX also wants to use Starship to place "AI compute satellites" in orbit in 2027.22 The company's commercial plans and NASA's lunar plans are now tied to the same vehicle.

NASA's own hardware is on track

The government-built parts of Artemis look comparatively steady. Artemis II launched on April 1, 2026, and flew four astronauts around the Moon on a flight lasting just over nine days.7 The crew reached 252,756 miles from Earth, beating Apollo 13's distance record.2 Early reviews after the flight found that Orion's heat shield performed as expected. The charring that worried engineers after Artemis I was much smaller, and the capsule splashed down 2.9 miles from its target.4 Some smaller problems remain under investigation, including a urine vent line fault that NASA wants fixed before Artemis III.4 NASA has now released the full set of lunar science data from the mission. It includes crew reports of five very faint flashes from rock fragments hitting the Moon.10

Work on Artemis III continues. In late September, technicians at Kennedy added the last forward booster segments to the mobile launcher. Those twin boosters supply more than three-quarters of the thrust at liftoff.9 The named crew is Randy Bresnik, ESA's Luca Parmitano, Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas.2

This creates a gap in readiness. SLS and Orion have flown with astronauts and done well. The landers they need have not. In practice, schedule risk has moved from NASA's own rocket to its commercial partners, and Starship's early return in September shows how much testing is still ahead.

Routine work at the space station

Operations in low Earth orbit continue to run smoothly by comparison. Crew-13 launched Oct. 1 with commander Jessica Watkins, pilot Luke Delaney, cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov and Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk. The launch had slipped from mid-September so a leaking valve in Dragon's propulsion system could be replaced.17 The crew reached the station in under eight hours, the fastest such trip for an American flight.14 Crew-12 came home on Oct. 8, two days later than originally planned.1417 Reports of the mission's length differ slightly: ScienceDaily cites NASA's figure of 237 days, while Spaceflight Now described it as 235 days before departure was delayed.1517 A Cargo Dragon due Oct. 13 will carry the last of the station's roll-out solar arrays, finishing an upgrade that began in 2021.17

That routine has an end date. NASASpaceFlight reports that the station is scheduled to begin decommissioning in 2030.18

Europe plans for its own access

The coming end of the station is pushing Europe to act. ESA member states have backed a "Call to Boost European Space Exploration," which names a European crew transport capability as a key goal. ESA has also begun studies on a European-led space station.18 At the same time, it has signed agreements with Axiom Space and Starlab, while an ESA astronaut is due to fly on Vast's first crewed Haven-1 expedition.18 Changes to Artemis have affected Europe too. Cancelling the Gateway lunar station in favour of a Moon base means ESA is renegotiating what it contributes, with the aim of eventually landing European astronauts on the Moon.18 ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher has warned that Europe's current rockets will not be enough for the launch demand expected around 2030.18

Science continues alongside the launches

Robotic exploration is still moving forward. JAXA plans to launch its Martian Moons eXploration mission on Oct. 20 to bring back the first samples from Phobos. ESA's Hera probe is expected to reach the asteroid pair Didymos in November.12 NASA has chosen the GIMLI project to study whether the Marius Hills pit on the Moon leads into a large cave, which could be a sheltered site for a future base.1615 There are also signs of strain in orbit. A dead Soviet satellite broke apart in low Earth orbit again, part of what experts call a worrying trend of breakups.11

The bottom line

For now, the outlook is good but fragile. SLS and Orion have shown they can carry crews. The station keeps running. Starship has reached orbit, though not as planned. The 2028 landing date now depends mostly on how quickly SpaceX, and Blue Origin as the second lander provider, can turn test flights into a dependable lunar lander. September's flight shows SpaceX is making progress, and it also shows how much work is left.