NASA on Tuesday named the four astronauts it plans to send on the Artemis III mission, the next major step in its return-to-the-moon program.
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Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano, Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas are expected to launch into Earth orbit next year, with the goal of testing two commercially developed lunar landers that are slated to carry astronauts to the surface of the moon during the Artemis IV mission 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 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 Artemis III aims to test. Both companies said in updates Tuesday that they expect their vehicles to be ready.
“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,†Jeremy Parsons, NASA's Artemis program manager, said during NASA's announcement on Tuesday.
Bresnik has been to the International Space Station twice, most recently as commander of an expedition in 2017. A retired U.S. Marine colonel, he was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2004. Bresnik has helped oversee development and testing of spacecraft for the Artemis program as an assistant to the chief of the Astronaut Office, which manages astronaut training and operations.
Parmitano has also done two stints on the ISS and served as commander of an expedition in 2019. He has completed a total of six spacewalks and also performed the first live DJ set in orbit. Before becoming an astronaut, Parmitano was a test pilot for the Italian air force.
For Rubio, a physician with 28 years of service in the U.S. Army, Artemis III will be his second trip to space. From 2022 to 2023, he spent 371 days on the space station, breaking the record for longest-duration space flight by an American, according to NASA.
Douglas is the only crew member making his space flight debut. An engineer who previously worked on space exploration and robotics at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, he became a NASA astronaut in 2022.
Douglas was the backup crew member for the Artemis II mission around the moon earlier this year. He told NBC News in an interview after Tuesday's announcement that the role had at times been a challenge.
“It was hard to figure out how do you balance getting ready to go, not go, all that stuff,†he said. “But to go now is just fantastic.â€
The Artemis III mission is expected to last about two weeks, NASA revealed on Tuesday — roughly four days longer than Artemis II.
Eventually, the Artemis program aims to establish a sustained human presence on the moon. NASA announced plans this year to spend $20 billion to build a base on the lunar surface.
Initially, the agency had planned for the Artemis III mission to land astronauts on the moon, but NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman overhauled the program this year to add missions and increase the pace of launches ahead of a moon landing attempt.
So the plan for Artemis III is now to stay closer to Earth and test rendezvous and docking operations with the moon landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin. These maneuvers are essential because NASA's moon-landing plan calls for one of these landers to meet up with its Orion spacecraft — the capsule that carried the Artemis II crew in April — in orbit around the moon. The lander would carry two astronauts down to the lunar surface and serve as their living quarters while there. To finish the mission, the lander would blast off the moon and redock with Orion, which would take the crew back to Earth.
“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.â€
If Artemis III goes as planned, the U.S. could pull off its first moon landing in more than 50 years — and do so before China puts its own astronauts on the lunar surface, which the country plans to accomplish by 2030.
Isaacman told NBC News on Tuesday that although the U.S. has an advantage in this new space race, it's close.
“Success and failure is measured in months,†he said. “Competition is a great way to concentrate resources, focus on the needle-moving objectives, and achieve them. It worked very well for us against the Soviets in the 1960s and I have no doubt today, the geopolitical landscape, it will motivate us.â€
Parsons said key elements of the Artemis III program are coming along nicely. A redesigned heat shield for NASA's Orion spacecraft, for example, has been built and tested, he said. During the Artemis II mission, some critics were concerned about that heat shield because it had sustained damage during the uncrewed Artemis I mission.
“Our improved heat shield has been fully inspected and is ready to be installed,†Parsons said.
However, questions remain about whether Blue Origin will be ready to launch its lander for Artemis III. The company recently suffered a major setback when one of its rockets exploded during an engine test. The fireball caused extensive damage to the company's only operational launch pad.
On Tuesday, however, John Couluris, senior vice president of lunar permanence at Blue Origin, expressed optimism about the company's timeline.
“Manufacturing is well underway on the Artemis III Mark 2 lunar crew module, our storable reaction control system, our docking systems, and our environmental control and life support system. Our factories are running around-the-clock shifts in a responsible manner,†he said. “We expect to complete the vehicle for Artemis III and be ready for launch in 2027.â€
Just days before the Blue Origin explosion, NASA had awarded the company a contract to deliver payloads to the moon on an uncrewed mission later this year — the first in a series of robotic missions NASA is planning in preparation to land a crew. Through those missions, NASA intends to scout the moon's south pole and test technologies that future Artemis astronauts could use there. Given the recent explosion, it's unclear whether Blue Origin will be able to complete that mission as planned this year.
Isaacman expressed confidence in both SpaceX and Blue Origin.
“That is the iterative design process that both Blue Origin and SpaceX have leaned into to fail fast, get the data, roll those improvements into the next rocket,†he told NBC News. “We've got a year to go. I have no doubt you're going to see lots of SpaceX launches, you're going to see Blue Origin launches.â€
For Artemis III, NASA plans to again launch the crew to space atop its Space Launch System rocket, which will blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
“The most important Artemis mission is the next one. We don't get to a lunar landing without this flight,†Bresnik said in an interview.
