NASA Selects Artemis III Crew to Test Lunar Lander Prototypes

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced the four astronauts who will board Artemis III. As early as next year, they will head into space to inspect test models of lunar landers currently being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin.

From the left, Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano, Frank Rubio, and Andre Douglas, astronauts of Artemis III, are speaking at the Artemis III crew announcement press conference held on the 9th (local time) at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, USA. Houston (USA) = AFP Yonhap News

On the 9th (local time), NASA selected Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano, Andre Douglas, and Frank Rubio as the astronauts for Artemis III at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The mission commander will be Randolph Bresnik, a former test pilot who is undertaking his third spaceflight. He previously traveled to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2009 as part of the Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-129 mission and holds over 7,000 hours of flight time across 95 types of aircraft.

Parmitano, who is a member of the European Space Agency (ESA) and is from Italy, will be the first European national to participate in an Artemis mission. In 2013, he served as a flight engineer for the Italian Space Agency’s (ASI) first long-duration ISS mission, and he returned to the ISS again in 2019.

Rubio will embark on his second spaceflight. He set the record for the longest single spaceflight by a U.S. astronaut, spending 371 days in orbit. Douglas will be making his first journey into space. Selected as a NASA astronaut candidate in 2021, he served as a backup and closeout crew member for the Artemis II mission.

The crew will board Artemis III to carry out their mission in low Earth orbit. NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket will launch the Orion spacecraft and its crew from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After system checks, Orion will conduct a rendezvous and docking demonstration with test models of lunar landers currently being developed by Blue Origin and SpaceX. NASA will use this mission to validate integrated operational capabilities between Orion and the lunar lander, including system connections, software, propulsion, and communications.

Jared Isaacman, NASA administrator, stated, "Artemis III is another bold step toward humanity's return to the Moon," adding, "It will be a mission to test complex rendezvous and docking operations and to advance the technologies necessary for future deep space exploration."

The Artemis project originally consisted of Artemis I, which sent an uncrewed Orion spacecraft into lunar orbit; Artemis II, which aimed for a crewed spacecraft launch; and Artemis III, which was intended to achieve a lunar landing. However, with growing gaps between each mission, Artemis III has been adjusted to conduct rendezvous and docking between Orion and the lunar lander in low Earth orbit. The actual crewed lunar landing is now planned for the Artemis IV mission in 2028.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.