NASA Names Four Astronauts for Artemis III, a Low-Earth Orbit Test Flight Paving the Way to the Moon

At an event at Johnson Space Center in Houston, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman paused with a joke before naming the crew. "So you want to find out who the astronauts are?" he asked, then revealed the four people assigned to Artemis III, a mission targeting launch from Kennedy Space Center next year. They will not be going to the moon, but their flight is meant to pave the way.

The commander is NASA veteran Randy Bresnik, 58. He will lead European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano as pilot, with NASA astronauts Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas as mission specialists. Bresnik flew on Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-129 in 2009 and on a Soyuz in 2017 for a long stay on the International Space Station. Born in Fort Knox, Kentucky, he was picked in the 2004 astronaut class and retired from the Marine Corps as a colonel.

Parmitano, 49, was born in Palermo, Sicily, and was chosen as an ESA astronaut in 2009. He has flown to the station twice on Soyuz, in 2013 and 2019, and is a colonel in the Italian Air Force. Rubio, 50, was born in El Salvador and raised in Miami. He was a U.S. Army flight surgeon before NASA selected him in 2017. His 2022 Soyuz trip was supposed to last about six months, but Roscosmos chose to send the damaged spacecraft home, stretching the stay to nearly 371 days, the longest spaceflight by an American. Douglas, 40, is a Miami native raised in Chesapeake, Virginia. He was a U.S. Coast Guard commander, joined NASA in the 2021 class, and served as backup astronaut for Artemis II. Bob Hines, who most recently flew on Crew-3 to the station, is the backup for the Artemis III crew.

The remarks were personal. Bresnik thanked the spouses and families whose sacrifice, he said, would carry the crew through training and on until they return safely after splashdown. Parmitano called Italy his launch pad, crediting its education system, the Italian Air Force and the Italian Space Agency, which gave him his first flight. He likened ESA to the launch tower, NASA to the rocket and his family to the fuel. Douglas, overcome, said his brain was going a mile a minute and his heart was full. He thanked his parents and wife and children, and wished his father a happy early Father's Day.

Artemis III will be the third launch of the Space Launch System and Orion, and only the second with a crew, following this year's successful lunar flyby on Artemis II. Instead of heading to the moon, it will stay in low-Earth orbit to test Orion's ability to dock with one or both of the landers that could fly Artemis IV: SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's Blue Moon MK2. Isaacman said the mission would help NASA settle into multi-launch campaigns and test how systems work together close to home. Bresnik said the most important Artemis mission is always the next one, with each flight expanding the envelope before harder missions follow.

The updated plan calls for a two-week flight that docks first with Blue Moon, then Starship, before returning home. The crew would also have a version of Axiom Space's lunar spacesuit interact with at least one lander in orbit. NASA had said pathfinder versions of both landers, equipped for docking, were moving toward readiness for what had been a mid-2027 target.

Both landers face problems. Starship flew its 12th suborbital test this month from Starbase in Texas, but the FAA has grounded it after the Super Heavy booster failed to make a controlled return following stage separation. SpaceX is building a launch tower at Launch Complex 39-A at KSC, next to its Falcon pad, and hopes to begin operational launches there before year's end. Blue Origin's lander was to fly on New Glenn from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral, but that pad was heavily damaged last month when a New Glenn exploded during a static fire test. Isaacman said NASA and Blue Origin are pressing ahead and he is confident New Glenn will be available.

If both landers are ready, Artemis III could involve three launches: SLS from Pad 39-B, Starship from 39-A and Blue Moon from LC-36. NASA would then choose one lander for Artemis IV, still targeted for 2028, before the end of Trump's presidency. That mission aims to put humans on the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.