NASA named the four astronauts it plans to send on the Artemis III mission Tuesday, the next major step in its return-to-the-moon program.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano, Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas are scheduled to launch into Earth orbit next year to test out at least one of the commercially developed lunar landers expected to carry NASA astronauts to the surface of the moon in 2028.
Bresnik will be the mission’s commander, with Parmitano, an Italian astronaut with the European Space Agency, serving as the pilot.Douglas and Rubio will be mission specialists, and NASA astronaut Bob Hines will train with the crew as a backup member.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are racing to build the landers that the Artemis III mission aims to test.Both companies said in updates Tuesday that they expect their landers to be ready by then.
“This test flight will enable us to prove we can carry out highly choreographed operations with our partners across hardware interfaces, software propulsion systems, and life support elements with crew in the high stakes space environment,” said Jeremy Parsons, NASA’s Artemis Program Manager.The Artemis III mission is expected to last about two weeks, Parsons said — roughly four days longer than the Artemis II mission around the moon earlier this year.
It’s intended to be the Artemis program’s final testing mission.If it’s successful, NASA then plans to land a crew on the moon with the subsequent mission, Artemis IV.“Every aspect of Artemis III will give us insight into how to refine our plans for Artemis IV,” Parsons said.
“This mission is deliberately designed to take calculated risks, so that future crews will be safer and ultimately successful when we put boots on the lunar surface.”Eventually, NASA’s Artemis program aims to establish a sustained human presence on the moon.The space agenc...