NASA reveals Artemis III crew that will take the next big step on its journey back to the moon

By Jackie Wattles, CNN

(CNN) — NASA on Tuesday revealed the four astronauts who will join the next Artemis mission — a key, two-week flight that will aim to test out various technologies considered vital to putting astronauts back on the surface of the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.

The crew, set to launch as soon as late 2027, includes three NASA astronauts — first-time space flier Andre Douglas, record-setting astronaut Frank Rubio, and veteran flier and test pilot Randy Bresnik — as well as Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano with the European Space Agency.

Artemis III is designed to serve as a precursor mission to a moon landing, testing out how the NASA-built Orion spacecraft will dock with a lunar lander. The primary goal of the flight, the space agency says, is to “reduce risk” heading into an actual lunar touchdown, which NASA hopes will take place as soon as 2028.

In order to reach the moon’s surface, astronauts will have to complete such a move while in lunar orbit. But for Artemis III, NASA is aiming to test the maneuver much closer to home, sticking to low-Earth orbit, or LEO, the area closest to our home planet and the same region where the International Space Station operates.

The Artemis III crew will launch from Florida aboard their Orion capsule, the same type of spacecraft that completed April’s historic Artemis II lunar flyby mission, and hang out in low-Earth orbit.

At least one lunar lander will then launch separately — and it’s not yet clear whether it will be SpaceX’s Starship, Blue Origin’s Blue Moon, or one of each. But upon arrival to low-Earth orbit, the landers would then rendezvous with Orion, allowing the astronauts to dock with the vehicle and potentially climb on board a lander.

NASA has suggested it could carry out the test flight with both Blue Moon and Starship, though it’s not clear how soon either vehicle will be ready. The space agency has made a concerted effort in recent months to spur competition between the companies, which have for years held multibillion-dollar contracts to deliver crew-worthy lunar landers to NASA. Both companies have experienced development setbacks and delays.

During Tuesday’s news conference, NASA chief Jared Isaacman again suggested Artemis III could involve docking with both landers, saying Orion “will rendezvous and dock with the Blue Origin lander, and then again with the SpaceX lander.”

But both SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon are facing uncertain timelines. Blue Origin in particular encountered a major setback last month when one of the company’s New Glenn rockets exploded during a routine ground test. (New Glenn is the rocket that Blue Origin intends to use to vault the Blue Moon lander to space.)

Isaacman also said NASA plans to carry out a key test — called a wet dress rehearsal — of its Space Launch System rocket, or SLS, by the end of the year.

Artemis III comes into view

The Artemis III mission has come together in a uniquely fast-paced and unexpected way.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman stunned the space industry in February by announcing the Artemis III mission plan — usurping previous plans to make Artemis III an actual moon landing, the first since 1972.

Isaacman, however, argued that jumping straight from this year’s Artemis II lunar flyby to a moon landing mission with Artemis III was too big of a technological leap.

“We didn’t go right to Apollo 11,” Isaacman said earlier this year. “We had a whole Mercury Program, Gemini — lots of Apollo missions before we ultimately landed.” NASA’s old Artemis plan, he argued, “was not a pathway to success.”

On Tuesday, NASA gave one of the first substantive descriptions of how the mission might look if it docks with both Blue Origin’s Blue Moon and SpaceX’s Starship.

Orion would first dock with Blue Moon, said Artemis program manager Jeremy Parsons, and spend about two days linked up in orbit, allowing astronauts to board the vehicle and evaluate crucial components — including life support systems that Parsons said can only be tested in orbit.

While docked with the Blue Origin vehicle, the astronauts will be able to test a “mass simulator” meant to represent one of the spacesuits that is under development for future moon landing missions by Texas-based company Axiom Space, Parsons told CNN in an interview Tuesday afternoon.

After undocking from the Blue Origin lander, the Orion spacecraft would then dock with SpaceX’s Starship for only “about a day,” Parsons said.

Parsons added that the Artemis III crew would not enter the SpaceX vehicle during the mission, as it will not be outfitted with a life support system or a built-out interior.

“Their crew cabin is coming along later in their development cycle,” Parsons told CNN, noting that SpaceX has previously built a crew-worthy cabin on its Dragon spacecraft that allows NASA to “buy down” some of those risks when it comes to Starship.

The trip would conclude with a splashdown landing in the Pacific Ocean.

Bresnik, Douglas, Rubio and Parmitano will have about one year to prepare for the flight under the current timeline. For comparison, NASA’s Artemis II astronauts trained for three years for their mission, in part due to a string of schedule delays.

Meet the Artemis III astronauts

The four men who make up the Artemis III crew have a range of backgrounds, with a heavy emphasis on engineering and test pilot experience. The selection of an all-male crew also stands out as a deviation from more recently established patterns at NASA. It’s been rare in recent years for NASA to not include a woman as part of crew.

Randy Bresnik

Bresnik, 58, nicknamed “Komrade,” joined NASA in 2004. He’s flown missions on NASA’s space shuttle and Russia’s Soyuz capsule in 2009 and 2017, respectively. And he’s played a key role in the Artemis program already, serving as assistant-to-the-chief astronaut. In that role, Bresnik “manages insight and expertise of the crew in their essential role in the development and testing of all vehicles and aspects of an Artemis mission,” according to NASA.

Bresnik will serve as commander of the Artemis III flight.

“We are certainly humbled as a crew to be able to be your crew that executes this Artemis III mission in space, being that unifying link between the phenomenal Artemis II mission we just had two months ago and the Artemis IV mission that will follow ours, where we will again be the first to land humans on another celestial body — that celestial body being our neighbor in the sky at night, the moon,” Bresnik said.

Bresnik considers Santa Monica, California, his hometown. Before joining NASA, he studied mathematics at The Citadel military college in South Carolina. He also has a master’s degree in aviation systems from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and graduated from Air War College in 2008. A retired officer in the United States Marine Corps, Bresnik also attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot’s School — a common astronaut career path — to become an F/A-18 Test Pilot and served in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Andre Douglas

Douglas, 40, joined NASA in 2021. He has never before been assigned to a mission, but he did train as backup for the Artemis II mission, which in April made history by carrying four astronauts on a trip around the moon — marking the first time humans have ventured to the vicinity of the moon since the Apollo program ended more than 50 years ago.

As a backup for that mission, Douglas completed all the training that the primary crew — NASA’s Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — took on. That gives him months of previous experience learning how to fly the space agency’s Orion spacecraft.

Douglas gushed about the opportunity to join Artemis III as mission specialist for his first foray into spaceflight, saying on Tuesday, “my brain — it is going a mile a minute right now. But my heart — my heart — it is so warm.”

Born in Miami, Douglas went on to study engineering at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and earned three master’s degrees and a Ph.D. from institutions including the University of Michigan and George Washington University. Before joining NASA, Douglas served in the U.S. Coast Guard and carried out research for NASA at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

Frank Rubio

Also a mission specialist for Artemis III, Rubio, 50, joined NASA in 2017 and first reached space on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in 2022, intending to serve a roughly six-month mission to the ISS. Issues with the Soyuz spacecraft, however, led Rubio to stay in orbit for more than 370 days, breaking the record for the longest single duration spaceflight by a U.S. astronaut. During the trip, he also famously misplaced the first tomato grown in orbit.

Rubio, a Miami native, is a military parachute “jumpmaster” with over 650 skydives under his belt. Before joining NASA, he was also an Army aviator and served combat deployments to Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

He’s also a board-certified family physician and flight surgeon. Rubio holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the United States Military Academy at West Point and a doctorate of medicine from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

Luca Parmitano

Parmitano, 49, was selected as an ESA astronaut in May 2009. He has flown to space twice in 2013 and 2019, conducting a total of six spacewalks and serving as the first-ever Italian International Space Station commander.

Although born in Paternò, Sicily, Parmitano considers Catania to be his home. He has degrees in political science and experimental flight test engineering and a thesis on international law. He has served as a test pilot and Colonel in the Italian Air Force.

Named as Artemis III’s pilot, Parmitano is qualified to fly on more than 20 types of military aircraft and, including helicopters, has flown over 40 types of aircraft. In 2007 he was awarded a Silver Medal of Aeronautic Valor by the President of the Italian Republic after he successfully landed his AMX, a military plane, following a bird strike.

Parmitano was visibly emotional during Tuesday’s event. “I’m grateful that NASA has allowed me to be part of this incredible group of people of this crew, and for letting me fly— but we wouldn’t be going anywhere without fuel, and the fuel that lets everything move is right here,” he said, referring to his family.

ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said that the agency is proud to know that, alongside a NASA commander, a European astronaut will be at the controls of the mission.

“He has been tested during a spacewalk early in his career,” Aschbacher said of Parmitano. “His helmet began to fill with water, a dangerous situation by any standard. He handled it with calm and clarity, and brought himself back safely. That tells you more about an astronaut than any CV ever could. Luca is precise, composed, and determined. Yes, I am sure he brings a touch of Italian ease to the cockpit.”

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