NASA unveils crew and details of the Artemis III Mission

Today, June 9, NASA introduced the crew for next year's Artemis III mission and updated information about the mission.  

The international crew consists of three spaceflight veterans and one first-time spaceflyer, all with backgrounds specially suited for their upcoming mission. The three NASA astronauts and one European Space Agency astronaut of Artemis 3 include commander Randy Bresnik of NASA, ESA's Luca Parmitano as pilot, and NASA astronauts Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio as mission specialists. All were present at the announcement ceremony today (June 9) here at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

The crew of NASA's upcoming Artemis 3 mission (from left to right): NASA's Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency.  NASA's Frank Rubio, and NASA's Andre Douglas. (Image credit: Future/Josh Dinner)

The linked story goes into more details about the crew members but the most important part of this story is the mission itself. It seems that the most likely date for this mission is toward the second half of 2027, so more than a year from now, especially in light of the loss of Blue Origin's vehicle back on May 28th. The mission is not going to have much in common with Artemis II and will not leave low Earth orbit. The details are all pretty loose for the time being, but before the loss of the New Glenn, the concept that was that Blue would launch their Blue Moon Mark I lunar lander and SpaceX would launch their Human Landing System version of Starship. The crew of Artemis III would rendezvous with both landers, preferably docking with both and testing as many systems as they can. 

"Artemis 3 will be an extraordinary demonstration of what is possible when the greatest aerospace companies across the United States, alongside our European partners come together to showcase the technological might and ambition of the free world," Isaacman said during the event. "This seems like the beginning of the future that we imagined as children. This seems like the very beginning of Earth's first Starfleet to me" 

Since Artemis' Orion capsule launches on the SLS, Blue Origin's lander launches on New Glenn and the HLS launches on Starship, and those are pretty much the three most powerful launch vehicles on Earth, that's going to be the most resources ever used on a mission. Temper that with not having a clue if New Glenn can be flying by then. While SpaceX's HLS hasn't technically flown yet, the modifications to the Starship are small, and while Starship hasn't technically made orbit, that has been a bunch of very deliberate decisions to reduce risks and the cost of recovering from risks. I think Starship is in better shape than Blue Moon Mark I. Put another way, it seems to me, Starship could go into orbit immediately, and the differences between Starship and the HLS are simply different parts used in a handful of places.

In what seems to be a very possible outcome, if Blue Origin can't get back to launching fast enough to join this party, that leaves HLS to be the one that delivers astronauts to the lunar surface for the program's first moon landing on Artemis 4, which NASA is hoping to launch in 2028. Should neither lander be ready to launch by NASA's 2027 window for the upcoming mission, a moon landing the following year would be unlikely, and would probably shift NASA's entire timeline for establishing a permanent lunar base at the turn of the decade further into the 2030s.