Three Nasa astronauts are also on the crew: Randy Bresnik will command the mission, and Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio round out the rest of the team.
This past spring’s Artemis 2 mission saw humans conduct a lunar flyby, but the third phase will stay closer to Earth.
The primary goals of the trip include testing the abilities of Nasa’s Orion spacecraft, as well as a rendezvous with lunar landers developed by the private space companies SpaceX and Blue Origin.
The timeline of the mission has been thrown into question after Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded during a ground test late last month.
During an event at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, John Couluris of Blue Origin acknowledged the “significant anomaly” but insisted the company’s lander will be ready for Artemis 3 on time.
“We have redoubled our efforts and are moving forward,” he said.
– AFP