NASA's two-lander Artemis IV plan: Starship and Blue Moon work differently on the same mission
From the Space digest for Oct 25, 2026
What happened: NASA's plan to fly both landers on Artemis IV — the Moon landing mission targeted for 2028 — contains major changes, and SpaceX and Blue Origin will use different operational methods for Starship and Blue Moon during that single mission, Starlust reports on October 25.
What's genuinely new: The operational distinction between the two landers within one mission — not just that both fly, but how their roles differ in the revised profile. It lands against a revised campaign in which NASA has said it will not choose between the SpaceX and Blue Origin landers until Earth-orbit test results are in (reported October 24), with uncrewed lunar landings by both targeted for early 2028, and the broader Apollo-urgency frame of a Moon base and landings "in as little as two years" that the wire coverage carried October 24.
Watch: The specifics of each lander's operational method as NASA details them; whether the 2028 Artemis IV landing target survives its own test schedule; and the uncrewed landing demonstrations that gate the final selection.
Sources Starlust