NASA Reveals Artemis III Crew for Next Moon Landing
Imagine that you are an astronaut. You have just been chosen to go to the Artemis III mission and asked to risk your life. Four individuals have recently experienced that. NASA has officially announced the crew for the future Artemis III moon landing. The crew will be led by commander Randy Bresnik. European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano from Italy will be serving as the pilot. NASA astronauts Andrew Douglas and Frank Rubio will complete the 4-person crew as specialists.
Andrew Douglas was the first person to react prior to the announcement. He gratefully said, “My heart is so warm, it is so full.“ He was originally a backup crew member in the Artemis II mission this year, and Artemis III will mark his first ever journey into space.
His fellow specialist Frank Rubio is famous for holding the American world record for the longest single spaceflight, spending 371 days in a row in orbit around the earth.
Pilot Luca Parmitano is going to be the first Italian astronaut to go into space. He is also the third European to command the International Space Station.
Commander Randy Bresnik has been a NASA astronauts since 2004, and he thinks the Artemis III moon landing will be the most important step to humanity’s return to landing on the moon.
The mission is currently planned for 2027, and this time the mission is to stay in low earth orbit, instead of landing on the moon. Like this year’s Artemis II mission, the takeoff will be aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft, and it will be on top of the huge Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
Once in orbit, the crew will practice meeting and docking with two special Moon landers sent by two seperate space companies: Space X’s Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 2. The Orion will dock one crew mate at a time, with astronauts practicing moving from one spacecraft to another. NASA says this is an important test to ensure the safety of the future moon landing crews. Jeremy Parsons, from NASA’s Moon to Mars program office, said, “In total, we expect the mission to last around 2 weeks. The mission is specifically designed to take calculated risks so that future crews will be safer and ultimately successful when we put boots on the lunar surface.”
The Artemis IV, currently scheduled for 2028, will actually have astronauts land on the Moon’s surface, after the safety of the exercises that need to be performed is confirmed.