diff --git a/CHANGELOG/CHANGELOG-1.21.md b/CHANGELOG/CHANGELOG-1.21.md
index 6798a0811..e88871e5b 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG/CHANGELOG-1.21.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG/CHANGELOG-1.21.md
@@ -15,6 +15,8 @@ When cutting a new release, update the `unreleased` heading to the tag being gen
 
 ## unreleased
 
+* [CHANGE] [#1484](https://github.com/k8ssandra/k8ssandra-operator/issues/1484) Update Medusa version to 0.23.0
+
 ## v1.21.0 - 2025-02-03
 
 * [CHANGE] [#1450](https://github.com/k8ssandra/k8ssandra-operator/issues/1450) Update datacenter labels to use Kubernetes resource names for CassandraDatacenter, not the cleaned override name. Update to cass-operator 1.23.0
diff --git a/pkg/medusa/reconcile.go b/pkg/medusa/reconcile.go
index 08fd1ba9a..7107b8744 100644
--- a/pkg/medusa/reconcile.go
+++ b/pkg/medusa/reconcile.go
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ import (
 const (
 	DefaultMedusaImageRepository = "k8ssandra"
 	DefaultMedusaImageName       = "medusa"
-	DefaultMedusaVersion         = "97aa0276"
+	DefaultMedusaVersion         = "0.23.0"
 	DefaultMedusaPort            = 50051
 	DefaultProbeInitialDelay     = 10
 	DefaultProbeTimeout          = 1