On Tuesday, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch—three of the four crewmembers on NASA’s historic Artemis II mission in April—literally passed the baton to the next four astronauts participating in the space agency’s lunar exploration program.
“We’ve been carrying these batons around for way too long,” Wiseman told Randy Bresnik, who NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman on Tuesday named the commander of the low-Earth orbit (LEO) Artemis III mission. “You’ve got the controls.”
“While this may look like just a baton right now that’s in my hand, it feels like this big flaming Olympic torch that you—Reed, Christina, Victor, and [Canadian astronaut] Jeremy [Hansen]—lit,” said Bresnik. “We, the Artemis III crew, are honored to be able to carry this torch forward, to be able to execute our mission, to make that flame burn brighter and pass it on.”
The crowd at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston erupted with cheers and laughter as Artemis III mission specialists Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas pretended to run as they passed the baton, imitating a relay race.
“To my boys, if you put in the hard work and you think big, you can do just about anything you want to do,” Douglas said.
Artemis III will be the first crewed Artemis mission with commercial spacecraft—human landing system (HLS) vehicles from SpaceX and Blue Origin. It will also be the first to include a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut, Italy’s Luca Parmitano. ESA led the development of the service module on the Orion capsule that will ferry the astronauts around the Earth. Artemis II similarly included one non-NASA astronaut, Canada’s Hansen.
“Just as the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo crews that came before them, Artemis II will pass along all they have learned and hand the torch to Artemis III,” said Isaacman. “Over the next year, they will train for their mission, ensure the lessons learned from the prior crew are implemented, and assist in the development of the landers and operational procedures that will be necessary for their colleagues on future Artemis missions.”
Unlike Artemis II, which slingshotted astronauts around the moon and farther than any human has ever ventured, Artemis III will remain in LEO. Jeremy Parsons, a high-ranking official of NASA’s Moon to Mars program, said the mission will last about two weeks. Like Apollo 9, it aims to test lunar landers in orbit before sending them to the moon with crew.
Isaacman predicted Artemis III will launch no earlier than this time next year. The NASA administrator and Parsons reiterated that it will include both SpaceX and Blue Origin’s HLS vehicles, despite Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploding during a ground test last month. New Glenn is designed to launch the company’s Blue Moon HLS.
Meet the Crew
Like many NASA crews, Bresnik, Rubio, Douglas, and Parmitano combined bring thousands of hours of aircraft flight experience.
Bresnik was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2004 and is making his third spaceflight. He has logged more than 3,600 hours in spacecraft and since 2018 has overseen the development and testing of Artemis spacecraft.
Before joining NASA, Bresnik logged more than 7,000 flight hours across 95 aircraft, rotorcraft, and gliders during his time in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was an F/A-18 Super Hornet test pilot, instructor on the Super Hornet, T-38 Talon, and retired T-2 Buckeye, and flew combat missions in Kuwait.
Bresnik is a member of the Experimental Aircraft Association and fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots. He flies warbirds in his free time and holds an Airline Transport Pilot Rating and Unlimited Piston Engine Letter of Authorization.
“The most important Artemis mission will always be the next Artemis mission,” Bresnik said Tuesday. “We are doing flight tests on every single flight, incrementally determining the flight envelope, expanding it, proving out capabilities, and making the operational procedures that we have more and more precise, because every single mission we will do after this will be more challenging and more complex.”
Parmitano, the first ESA astronaut assigned to an Artemis mission, is also making his third spaceflight. In 2019, he was the third European and first Italian to command the International Space Station (ISS).
“During a space walk early in his career, his helmet began to fill with water, a dangerous situation by any standard,” said ESA director general Josef Aschbacher. “He handled it with calm and clarity and brought himself back safely. That tells you more about an astronaut than any CV ever could…He is exactly the right person for this role, and he is ready.”
Parmitano, the mission’s pilot, has a master’s degree in experimental flight test engineering and graduated from the Italian Air Force Academy. He served as a test pilot and colonel, logging more than 2,000 flight hours across 40 aircraft types. He is qualified on more than 20 types of military aircraft and rotorcraft, including the AMX, designated A-11 Ghibli by the Italian Air Force.
FLYING readers might recognize Rubio’s name. In 2022 and 2023, he spent 371 days on orbit after his ISS trip was extended due to a spacecraft malfunction, breaking the previous record for an American. Rubio traveled more than 150 million miles and flew with 28 different crewmates during the sojourn.
“Learning to fly for the first couple days is pretty difficult,” Rubio told FLYING after that mission.
That’s despite a decorated military career spanning nearly three decades as a U.S. Army pilot and physician. Rubio flew more than 1,100 hours on the UH-60 Black Hawk and was part of the West Point Parachute Team, having completed more than 650 freefall skydives.
Douglas is the greenest astronaut of the quartet, having never flown to space before and lacking traditional flying experience. He was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021 and was a backup for Artemis II. He also served as a closeout crewmember, helping secure the astronauts in the Orion capsule.
Douglas is a graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and conducted search and rescue, maritime salvage, and drug interdiction operations at the helm of maritime vessels. He has also designed and tested autonomous vehicles and space exploration systems at Johns Hopkins University and piloted uncrewed surface vessels.
NASA astronaut Bob Hines will train with Bresnik, Parmitano, Rubio, and Douglas as the backup crewmember. Hines too has extensive flight experience, serving 27 years in the U.S. Air Force as an instructor, fighter, and test pilot.
“We will be studying the route from Earth, and our Artemis III crew will be our mission scientists,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
Fox said the crew’s observations of atmospheric activity outside Orion will be key to determining what equipment could be installed for future missions.
“We’re going to use this flight to buy down our risk for landed missions by developing our science processes, procedures, and readiness specifically for Orion to ensure the health and safety of our astronauts and spacecraft for our future Artemis missions,” she said.
The Mission
Artemis III will be critical to NASA’s ambitions to return Americans to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.
Originally intended to be a lunar landing, the mission in February was changed to an integrated test of multiple spacecraft in low-Earth orbit before the real deal, scheduled for 2028.
NASA in 2022 conducted the uncrewed Artemis I test flight and in April proved it could safely return humans from lunar orbit. Parsons said Artemis III will “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.”
“Are we able to launch in sequence with our partners across multiple launch pads and meet up at precise points in space?” he said. “How do our spacecraft, designed and built across NASA and different partners, operate together in an integrated way in an unforgiving environment?”
He added that the mission is “deliberately designed to take calculated risks” so that future missions can succeed.
Parsons said the approximately two-week mission will begin with Blue Origin’s launch of New Glenn carrying its Blue Moon Mark 2 (Mk2) lander. The lander can loiter for up to 90 days in orbit, giving NASA time to prepare and launch the crew in Orion atop the Space Launch System (SLS) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Orion will fly a circular orbit and rendezvous with Blue Moon. It will spend the next two days performing an array of tests and demonstrations while docked, “including inside the Blue Origin spacecraft,” Parsons said. Before Tuesday, officials had not confirmed that activities were planned inside the lander. He said the objective is for astronauts to enter the HLS and test its life support systems.
“We want to do this in Earth’s orbit before we return to the moon and establish an enduring presence there,” Parsons said. “[During Artemis II], we found things we needed to improve, and our teams are already hard at work solving those issues to make Orion even more capable…Artemis III is an opportunity to take those lessons and apply them.”
Blue Moon would then undock from Orion, which will await SpaceX’s Starship HLS. The two vehicles will “dock and be connected together for about a day before the crew transitions to preparations for returning home,” Parsons said. Notably, he made no mention of activities planned inside the SpaceX lander.
It is unclear if either HLS vehicle will be ready for NASA’s mid-2027 Artemis III timeline.
Jessica Jensen, SpaceX’s vice president of customer operations and integration, said the company has made “substantial progress” developing Starship—also intended for commercial uses—for the Artemis missions. Parsons said the company’s recent test flight, which debuted the rocket’s upgraded Version 3 (V3) configuration, “demonstrated key aspects of their architecture and lander designs.”
Jensen added that SpaceX is building several ships and boosters at its Starbase facility in Texas, as well as three Starship launch pads in Texas and Florida to achieve “aircraft-like operations.” The company’s Falcon 9 flies every two and a half days, she estimated.
Jensen said the V3 Starship will have HLS docking hardware “nearly identical” to the systems on its Dragon crew capsule, which ferries NASA astronauts to the ISS. Its rendezvous and proximity sensors have flown on Dragon spacecraft for years, she added.
However, the company still has work to do. Before putting astronauts on the moon, SpaceX needs to conduct an in-space propellant transfer demonstration to prove it can safely stock an orbiting fuel depot, which Starship will use for lunar trips. Jensen said that is planned for this year. She said the company is “marching toward” an uncrewed lunar landing demonstration—also required before crewed operations—but did not provide a timeline.
However, she said SpaceX is building its first “flight fidelity” Starship HLS cabin at Starbase.
“The primary structure is assembled and prepared to be outfitted with key functional systems like avionics, power, life support systems, and more to come in the next few months,” Jensen said.
Blue Origin similarly has issues to work through.
“As you know, we had a significant anomaly at our Launch Complex 36A on May 28,” said vice president John Coulouris, referring to last month’s explosion. “We’re making excellent progress on the investigation and pad cleanup. We’ll begin rebuilding once cleanup is complete while continuing construction at Launch Complex 36B.”
Parsons said NASA is “confident” that New Glenn will be back in action in time for the mission. But the space agency “is stepping in and bringing all of our expertise and capabilities to bear,” he added.
Coulouris said multiple Blue Moon Mk1 landers—designed to deliver cargo—are being built, with the first expected to soon complete testing and be ready for a 2026 debut. That will mark the first orbital test of the BE-7 engines designed specifically to power it.
Coulouris added that manufacturing of the first Mk2 vehicle, which will carry astronauts, is “well underway.” He said the vehicle during Artemis III will demonstrate rendezvous, docking, hatch operations, ingress, and life support systems ahead of an uncrewed lunar landing demonstration planned for early 2028.
Artemis III’s success hinges on the readiness of the two HLS vehicles. But Isaacman on Tuesday confidently predicted that NASA would complete an Artemis III wet dress rehearsal before year’s end.
Parsons said the Orion crew module and European service module will be integrated this summer. An “improved” heat shield, he said, has been “fully inspected and is ready to be installed.” He added that engineers are working on modifications to Orion that would allow it to do more on future missions.
Processing for the SLS core stage, meanwhile, is already “well underway.” The launcher arrived at NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida in April, and teams later this summer will install its four RS-25 engines. Teams at Kennedy have already begun simulating launch countdowns and propellant loading.
Parsons added that next-generation spacesuit provider Axiom Space is “making great progress.” He said components for the suits’ life support systems are “in hand and being integrated,” with testing on the ISS planned for 2027. Artemis III astronauts will “perform hardware interface checkouts on at least one lander in a spacesuit,” Parsons said.
Still, he said NASA is taking an “active hand” to ensure Blue Origin, Axiom, and other contractors fulfill their obligations. The remark echoes Isaacman’s comments in March.
“We are not going to sit idly by when schedules slip or budgets are exceeded,” he said. “Expect uncomfortable action, if that is what it takes, because the public has invested over $100 billion and has been very patient with respect to America’s return to the moon. Expectations are rightfully very high.”
Just as high was Isaacman’s praise for the four astronauts who will lay the groundwork for an eventual lunar landing.
“To the Artemis III crew, we wish you godspeed on the journey ahead,” he said Tuesday. “You carry the fire of exploration from generations past, the confidence of this agency and the support of this nation, and the dreams of millions who will be cheering you on, knowing that what others believe to be impossible happens to be what we do best here at NASA.”