NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told lawmakers Monday the agency “received responses” from both SpaceX and Blue Origin for the planned Artemis III mission in 2027.
Artemis III is now planned as a crewed demonstration in low-Earth orbit in which an Orion crew capsule will practice rendezvous and docking with one or both of the lunar landers in development. Earlier this month, Isaacman told an audience at the Space Symposium that he’s “gaining confidence by the day that it’ll be both.”
On Monday, Isaacman told the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies that he’s “received responses from both vendors, both SpaceX and Blue Origin, to meet our needs for a late 2027 rendezvous docking and test the interoperability of both landers in advance of a moon landing attempt in 2028.”
Asked during the hearing about NASA’s spending on landing systems for Artemis, Isaacman said he “appreciate[s] that both those companies are investing well in excess of that, as well, for a capability that is so important.”
Isaacman noted NASA’s detailed budget request is “going through the final administration checks, and I understand it should be delivered next week.”
He also fielded questions about dozens of NASA programs that were omitted from the White House’s fiscal 2027 budget request.
“We haven’t canceled anything yet. Every mission is still active. Right now, we are proposing that there are a lot of missions in formulation right now that could be done better, faster and at lower cost for the taxpayers,” he said.
The Trump administration’s proposed budget for NASA this year was largely identical to the fiscal 2026 request, which sought to fund NASA at $18.6 billion. That included a nearly 50% cut to the agency’s science programs.
Almost none of those cuts were included in the $24.4 billion NASA budget Congress approved in January. In a hearing held by the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology last week, members said they plan to again reject the proposed cuts.