Astronaut Randy Bresnik will command the four-person Artemis III crew, which will test the Orion spacecraft's ability to rendezvous and dock with commercially designed lunar landers in low Earth orbit.
European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano of Italy will serve as pilot, and NASA astronauts Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas will serve as mission specialists, NASA announced at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas on June 9, 2026.
Parmitano has flown twice and survived a spacewalk that was cut short when his helmet filled with water, a source said, Rubio served in the U.S. Army and is a board certified family physician and flight surgeon who set the American single spaceflight record at 371 days after an extended Soyuz stay, and Douglas will make his first spaceflight after being selected as an astronaut in 2021 and serving as backup for Artemis II.
Bob Hines was named as a backup crew member who will also train with the four astronauts, and Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman symbolically passed a baton carried on the lunar flyby to Bresnik as part of the handover, officials said.
The flight test begins with an uncrewed launch of Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander, which can remain in orbit for 90 days, giving time for the crew to launch in Orion atop the Space Launch System from Kennedy Space Center and dock to the lander to test life support and control systems during about two days of docked operations.
After undocking, SpaceX will launch Starship into low Earth orbit, the crew will dock to that vehicle for roughly a day, and then Orion will return for splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off California, officials said.
Timeline Risks And Industry Status
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said he wants to launch Artemis III by the end of next year, but the timeline faces uncertainty after Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket exploded during a static fire test and damaged the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station launch site, a source reported.
Jeremy Parsons of NASA's Moon to Mars Program Office described setbacks as learning opportunities and said teams are confident New Glenn will be ready, while Blue Origin representative John Couluris said the lander is expected to be ready for launch in 2027.
SpaceX has completed a 12th Starship test flight but has not yet launched Starship into orbit, and NASA officials said Artemis III is deliberately designed to take calculated risk to improve safety for future lunar surface missions, citing the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel's earlier assessment that a prior timeline was high risk.
Officials called the mission one of NASA's most complex, and they said lessons from the successful Artemis II 10-day lunar flyby will inform training, hardware updates, and operational procedures for Artemis III and subsequent missions.
