NASA announces the astronauts for the next Artemis mission. Here's what they'll be doing.

Artemis III has a crew. On June 9, NASA announced the four crewmembers of the next Artemis mission, expected to launch no earlier than June 2027: Commander Randy Bresnik, and Mission Specialists Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio, and Pilot Luca Parmitano, an Italian with the European Space Agency. NASA also selected a backup crew member, Bob Hines. 

Unlike the crew of Artemis II, which took a 252,756-mile ride around the moon, this crew’s mission will be a lot closer to home. They will launch to low Earth orbit to further test NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and the Orion crew capsule. Critically, they will, for the first time, attempt to rendezvous and dock with two different lunar landers built by SpaceX and Blue Origin, which have to successfully launch into orbit on their own separate rockets. NASA is also eyeing testing out other critical hardware, like a redesigned heat shield.

“This seems like the beginning of the future that we imagined as children,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said at the announcement. “Like the very beginning of Earth's first ‘Starfleet.’” 

Artemis III was originally scheduled to be the first moon landing in more than 50 years. However, in February 2026, Isaacman announced the moon landing will have to wait until Artemis IV in 2028. Rusty Schweickart, the lunar module pilot for Apollo 9, says the change made complete sense. “I don’t know how you would possibly have gone from Artemis II to the old Artemis III,” he said in an interview with National Geographic. “I mean, that smacks of arrogance.”

It’s not an unprecedented mission profile. It’s reminiscent of the Apollo 9 flight, which was the first test of the lunar module and Apollo spacesuit in Earth orbit in 1969.

There’s a lot to break down about the mission as announced, as well as the possibilities and uncertainties.

But first? Let’s talk about that crew.

Meet the crew

Commander Randy Bresnik is a Space Shuttle veteran who has been part of NASA’s astronaut corps since 2004, first flying on the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Since then, he conducted a long-duration spaceflight on the International Space Station where he spent 32 hours on space walks.This will be his third trip to space. “It’s an honor and a blessing to be part of such a stellar crew,” Bresnik said at the announcement. 

Pilot Luca Parmitano is a European Space Agency astronaut. He has flown to the International Space Station two times on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and famously experienced a life-threatening situation with water filling his helmet during a space walk. “I’m honored by the role I have been given, and humbled by the task in front of us,” Parmitano said during the announcement.

Mission Specialist Frank Rubio, a trained physician, holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a NASA astronaut at 371 days. His spaceflight was extended after his Soyuz capsule experienced a coolant leak. This will be his second trip to space. “What an incredible blessing and an honor it is to be standing here representing all of you,” he said during the announcement.

Mission Specialist Andre Douglas was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021, and was a backup crew member on Artemis II. Artemis III will be his first flight. “My heart, it is so warm, it is so full,” Douglas said.  

Bob Hines is the backup astronaut for all four crew members. He was the pilot for SpaceX’s Crew-4 mission and has spent 170 days in space.

Meet the landers

Artemis III shares some similarities with Artemis II: It will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and the Orion capsule will splash down off the coast of San Diego, California. But unlike that mission, Artemis III will stick to low earth orbit and be much longer, spanning around two weeks opposed to Artemis II’s 10 days.

During that time, NASA hopes to practice the complex choreography necessary to land on the moon. There’s a lot to test out. Orion is still a relatively new spacecraft, having only flown with a crew once before. But completely untested are the lunar landers.

There are currently two human landing systems (HLS) in development for Artemis IV, and it’s become something of a “space race” between Blue Origin and SpaceX, the two contractors building them. 

Blue Origin’s Mark 2 (MK2) is much more reminiscent of the Apollo program’s barebones lunar module, standing about 91 feet high, while SpaceX’s Human Landing System (HLS) is a sleek looking rocket-style spaceship standing 171 feet high. Both are designed to ferry two astronauts of a four-person Orion crew to the lunar surface for a seven-day stay, and then return the astronauts to Orion.

Unlike Apollo, both Artemis landers will require their own separate launches to get to orbit. They will refuel in Earth orbit and then head to the moon, where they will wait to dock with Orion in lunar orbit.

If both landers are ready, the crew will dock with Blue Origin’s test lander first and spend about two days attached to it. During that time, the crew will operate the lander and test out its life support systems. A rendezvous with SpaceX’s Starship test lander will follow, and they will spend a day docked. 

But both companies have challenges facing their moon landers. SpaceX’s megarocket Starship must be operational to launch HLS, but it’s currently still being tested. And according to a press conference on June 9, SpaceX only recently started building the crew module for HLS. Blue Origin recently experienced a setback with the New Glenn rocket explosion. The company was scheduled to test an uncrewed version of its lander, called MK1, later this year. Nevertheless, NASA is confident Blue Origin’s lander will be ready to fly for Artemis III. “Setbacks are a learning opportunity,” Jeremy Parsons, acting assistant deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars Program, said. “We are confident that New Glenn will be ready for Artemis III, along with Blue Origin.”

Neither lander is currently ready, nor would have been delivered on time for a previously proposed 2027 moon landing, which is another reason NASA added this mission to the program.

(Inside NASA's audacious plan to build a nuclear-powered moon base.) 

There’s a lot to test out on this two-week mission 

Why conduct an even longer test flight than the 10-day Artemis II mission? Mostly because there’s a lot more to learn about Orion and SLS. 

“You can't say that Orion — after flying with people in it for a week — is completely wrung out,” says Garrett Reisman, a Space Shuttle astronaut and former Director of Operations at SpaceX. There’s plenty to still test, and Reisman also pointed out that possible problems with the spacecraft could have been masked by the shorter duration of Artemis II. “There’s still a lot of stuff you can learn,” he says.

NASA will also need to test some improvements made to the capsule after Artemis II. “The things that we're going to have to improve upon for Artemis III are relatively small and incremental in nature, as opposed to wholesale redesigns of spacecraft subsystems,” said Rick Henfling, entry flight director for Artemis II, at a press conference on April 7. These tweaks include changes to the wastewater valve that caused some of the infamous toilet problems on Artemis II, as well a possible redesign of some components of the propulsion system for the European service module. NASA will also fly a new docking system on Artemis III to attach Orion to the landers.

Testing the Orion capsule closer to Earth also presents some opportunities to conduct some scientific tests aimed at teeing up future Artemis missions. The flight will gather data on Earth’s atmosphere, how the Orion spacecraft reacts to it, and the influence of a phenomenon called space weather (an umbrella term for high-energy particles from the sun and other hazardous radiation from space that interact with our planet’s protective atmosphere). These observations may guide future science instruments that could be attached to the outside of the capsule in Artemis IV. 

Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, likened the science goals for Artemis III to preparation for a roadtrip. “You need to know before you go ahead of time and prepare with a game plan, not just for your destination but for driving through all of the states in between,” she said at the announcement. “Will there be bad weather? Is your car ready for the trip? What do you need to pack for maximum comfort? And most importantly, will it all actually fit?”

The mission is also another opportunity to get practice fueling and launching the massive SLS rocket, which has been prone to leaks during fueling in the past. If NASA wants to realize its goal of multiple lunar launches a year, it will have to reduce delays in this part of the process. 

And of course, there’s the heat shield. After the uncrewed Artemis I returned, NASA noticed the heat shield material breaking off in chunks instead of melting away. After a full investigation, NASA determined that the heat shield wasn’t porous enough, which led to a redesign. However those modifications weren’t flown on Artemis II; NASA instead went with a tweaked reentry profile to reduce strain on the craft. Now, Artemis III will be the first time the fully redesigned, more permeable heat shield flies. 

However, Artemis III will not be able test the heat shield to its full potential. Artemis III will not re-enter Earth’s atmosphere as fast or as hot as a mission returning from the moon would. As John “Danny” Olivas, a former astronaut and heat shield expert put it poetically in an email to National Geographic: “The further you go, the more smash you need.” If there’s not enough smash, then it’s hard to fully test the heat shield.

(These are NASA’s new moon rovers. We drove them.)

Big questions remain

When NASA announced a target of mid-2027 for the Artemis III launch in order to preserve two possible moon landing attempts in 2028, it sounded ambitious. 

But then, a new challenge erupted. On May 28, Blue Origin’s New Glenn megarocket exploded on the launch pad during a routine static fire test (i.e.when a rocket is held down on the launch pad and the engines fire, allowing a test of launch vehicle performance.) The company is still evaluating the damage and rebuilding efforts, though CEO Dave Limp said in a statement that they are targeting another launch by the end of the year. That may be optimistic, as SpaceX took around 15 months to repair a launch pad and facilities after a Falcon 9 rocket exploded during a similar failed test on September 1, 2016. Additionally, the New Glenn incident is the largest explosion ever at Cape Canaveral, according to Colonel Brian Chatman, the commander of Space Launch Delta 45, which manages all space launches out of the east coast of Florida.

Launch pads are not interchangeable, as each rocket requires different infrastructure and ground systems, so New Glenn can only launch from this specific launch pad. And it’s the only rocket that can carry the Blue Origin MKII lander. It would require significant rocket modifications for that lander to fly on another rocket.

That means that the entire industry will be closely monitoring the progress on this launch pad repair effort, as it could directly affect the launch date of Artemis III. But NASA remains confident Blue Origin will be able to participate. "We are working hand-in-hand with them [Blue Origin] to meet our commitments to return our nation to the moon," Parsons said.

If neither SpaceX or Blue Origin are ready, that could push the launch out of 2027 entirely. It “would make absolutely no sense at all” for NASA to fly Artemis III without any lander hardware ready, says Reisman.

SpaceX must have Starship operational before HLS will be ready; the company has made good progress on their new launch vehicle, but it still is in testing. Additionally, both landers require refueling in Earth orbit, which is an additional hurdle, as neither company has demonstrated this capability yet.

It’s also unclear if the new lunar spacesuits will be ready. Axiom, the company contracted to build them, is working towards a late 2027 goal for the Artemis spacesuits, but according to a report from NASA’s Office of the Inspector General earlier this year, the suits may be delayed past the estimated Artemis III launch.

Increasing delays aren’t necessarily good for the crew. If NASA announces a crew too early, those astronauts can be tied up for a very long time if the mission gets pushed. “That’s not great for morale,” says Reisman.

Schweickart, however, sees a silver lining to delays. The Apollo 9 crew were initially the backup crew for Apollo 1, training alongside Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. Those three astronauts were killed in a capsule fire during a test on the launch pad. In late 1966, as NASA was working through the aftermath of the tragedy, the crew learned they would be the first to fly the lunar module. Apollo 9 didn’t fly until March of 1969. 

“Training is a good thing to do,” Schweickart says. “We had very, very few surprises on our Apollo 9 mission.” When he and Commander Dave Scott practiced in the lunar module simulator, they were concerned that when the ascent engine fired, it would make so much noise they would not be able to hear each other speak. As a result, during their training time, they developed a series of hand signals just in case.

When the actual engine ignited during their tests in space, it was silent.“ It was just a riot because we almost couldn't tell that it had lit.” They were perhaps over prepared for their mission because of their training time. “And I wish the same for Artemis III,” Schweickart concludes.