{"id":726065,"date":"2026-06-09T22:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T22:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/726065\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T22:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T22:36:14","slug":"nasa-unveils-artemis-iii-astronauts-to-test-technology-for-future-moon-landing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/726065\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA unveils Artemis III astronauts to test technology for future moon landing"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA has revealed the crew for its Artemis III mission, the next step in the US space agency’s plan to eventually land astronauts on the moon.<\/p>\n

The announcement comes two months after Artemis II’s record-breaking trip around the moon<\/a> that surpassed the distance record of Apollo 13.<\/p>\n

Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano will pilot the next voyage, the first European to join one of the program’s missions.<\/p>\n

He will be joined by three US astronauts: Commander Randy Bresnik and mission specialists Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas.<\/p>\n

\"Four<\/p>\n

From left, Andre Douglas, Luca Parmitano, Randy Bresnik and Frank Rubio. (AP: Bill Stafford\/NASA)<\/p>\n

The crew will not fly to the Moon or land on the surface, but instead orbit Earth while practising docking their Orion capsule with two lunar landers.<\/p>\n

“To the Artemis III crew, we wish you Godspeed on the journey ahead,” said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin are racing to deliver the lunar landers. The two-week demo is planned for 2027.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin suffered a recent setback when its massive rocket exploded during an engine-firing test<\/a> on the launch pad in Florida, shaking nearby homes and illuminating the sky with an orange fireball.<\/p>\n

NASA’s Jeremy Parsons said the explosion was a learning opportunity and that the space agency was confident Blue Origin’s rocket would be ready in time.<\/p>\n

The Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the moon’s surface for the first time since the 1970s.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Artemis III is the final mission planned before the space agency attempts to land astronauts on the lunar surface. (Supplied: NASA)<\/p>\n

A recent revamp of the program announced by Mr Isaacman aims to fast-track it similarly to the Apollo era<\/a>, adding the upcoming spaceflight around Earth before eyeing a lunar landing in 2028.<\/p>\n

“We are certainly humbled as a crew to be able to be your crew that executes this Artemis III mission in space,” said Commander Bresnik.<\/p>\n

Dr Douglas, mission specialist, said at the announcement event in Houston that his brain was “going a mile a minute”.<\/p>\n

“But my heart, it is so warm. It is so full,” he said.<\/p>\n

In May, NASA awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to four companies, including Blue Origin, to build landers, rovers and drones for a future moon base.<\/p>\n

Mr Isaacman said the goal of the moon base was to lay the foundation for a Mars expedition.<\/p>\n

AP\/Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA has revealed the crew for its Artemis III mission, the next step in the US space agency’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[32613,3105,54064,148719,64,63,64483,51799,4935,131,128,285],"class_list":["post-726065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-announced","tag-artemis","tag-artemis-3","tag-artemis-iii","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-crew","tag-mission","tag-moon","tag-nasa","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}