2027 is a landmark year for human spaceflight. NASA has named the crew for Artemis III, one of its most complex missions to date — astronauts Andre Douglas, Frank Rubio, Luca Parmitano and Randy Bresnik will fly to low Earth orbit aboard SLS and Orion to test rendezvous and docking with commercial human landing systems from Blue Origin and SpaceX.
It's the essential dress rehearsal for the crewed lunar South Pole landing that follows with Artemis IV in 2028.
- Haven-1 — the company Vast aims to launch the first-ever commercial space station in 2027.
- PLATO — ESA's exoplanet-hunting space telescope is targeted to launch in early 2027.