NASA has unveiled the Artemis III crew that will run critical rendezvous and docking tests for next-generation lunar landers ahead of a planned 2027 launch. The four-person team includes Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio, Luca Parmitano and Andre Douglas, as the miss
By the time Artemis III is ready to launch, the mission will already have changed shape once—moving the Moon landing to the fourth Artemis flight after NASA earlier decided to push the first attempt further out.
The reason is familiar to anyone who follows spaceflight: getting to orbit is hard; getting to the Moon and actually landing there is even harder. Earlier this year, NASA said the landing would be pushed out to the fourth mission. With more time in the schedule. NASA and its partners can also check performance and systems before the moment that matters most.
Yesterday. NASA held a press conference updating the public on progress toward the planned 2027 launch of Artemis III. and the agency used the occasion to deliver something the mission has been waiting for: the crew that will “kick the tires” on the next-generation lunar landers being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin.
Randy Bresnik will serve as commander. He is a graduate of the Naval Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN) and a former F/A-18 test pilot in the United States Marine Corps. Bresnik flew on the Space Shuttle as mission specialist aboard STS-129 and later commanded the International Space Station during Expedition 53. He has logged more than 7. 000 hours at the controls of nearly 100 types of aircraft. more than 3. 600 hours in spacecraft. and 32+ hours of spacewalk time across five extravehicular activities (EVAs).
Frank Rubio is the mission specialist. A United States Army colonel with a Doctorate of Medicine. Rubio has logged over 1. 100 hours as a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter pilot. with more than 600 of that time in combat conditions in Bosnia. Afghanistan. and Iraq. In 2022, he traveled to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz MS-22 for what was planned as a six-month mission. Damage to the spacecraft changed that timeline. leaving him on the Station for 371 days—setting a new record for the longest spaceflight by an American astronaut.
Luca Parmitano will fly as pilot. An ESA astronaut and a colonel and test pilot in the Italian Air Force. Parmitano has 2. 000+ hours of flying time across more than 40 types of aircraft. He served as flight engineer on the International Space Station during Expedition 36/37 in 2013. and he became the first Italian to conduct an EVA. During his second EVA. he navigated a highly dangerous situation when a spacesuit malfunction caused his helmet to fill with water. Parmitano returned to the ISS in 2019 as part of Expedition 60/61, bringing his total time in space to just under 367 days.
Andre Douglas completes the crew as mission specialist. He is a Coast Guard Reserve officer with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering and master’s degrees in Naval Architecture. Marine Engineering. Electrical Engineering. and Computer Engineering. plus a doctoral degree in Systems Engineering. During his time at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. he helped in the development of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission and Japan’s Martian Moons eXploration spacecraft. He completed astronaut training in 2024 and. although he served as a backup crew member for Artemis II. this will be his first spaceflight.
Artemis III is built around a sequence meant to prove that the pieces can meet, connect, and work as one. In the most ambitious version of the plan, three spacecraft launched by three different booster rockets will carry out a carefully choreographed operation over the course of two weeks.
Blue Origin will begin the campaign by launching the Blue Moon MK2 lander with one of its New Glenn rockets into low Earth orbit. The lander is designed to spend up to 90 days in space. giving NASA a window to get the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft ready for liftoff. After Orion launches, it will rendezvous and dock with the lander. The crew is then expected to spend the next two days performing various tests and demonstrations.
If all of that goes well, Orion will enter the lander, and the crew will don prototypes of the spacesuits being developed by Axiom Space for the Artemis IV crew to wear on the lunar surface.
The mission then shifts from one partnership to another. SpaceX will prepare a modified version of its Starship V3 spacecraft for liftoff atop the Super Heavy booster. Once Orion is undocked and clear of the Blue Moon MK2. the prototype Starship Human Landing System (HLS) will launch and meet the capsule in orbit. SpaceX representatives say the vehicle won’t be far removed from the version that completed a test flight back in May.
There is a notable limitation in this early prototype: compared to Blue Origin’s lander—described as having a boilerplate cabin design and functional life support systems—the Artemis III crew won’t be able to enter this early version of HLS.
That difference matters for how long the crew will be attached to the system. SpaceX Vice President of Space Operations Jessica Jensen pointed out that many of the systems that will be used in Starship HLS—such as life support and avionics—are derived from flight-proven hardware used on the Crew Dragon. and that some components. including the docking system. are effectively identical. From SpaceX’s view, the focus isn’t on matching capabilities at this stage. It’s on testing new hardware and procedures being developed specifically for the Moon.
Because astronauts will not be able to enter the Starship HLS prototype. the expectation is that the crew will spend significantly less time docked to it. After conducting maneuvers to see how the two vehicles handle in relation to each other. Orion will depart orbit and head for a splashdown in the Pacific.
While yesterday’s briefing centered on Artemis III, Jensen also shared brief details on how SpaceX and NASA are refining procedures for Artemis IV in 2028.
The plan for Artemis IV will use a trajectory similar to the Apollo missions. When Artemis III was set to land on the lunar surface. Starship HLS was expected to first enter a Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) around the Moon. where it would later be met by the Orion capsule. That approach relied on the Lunar Gateway Station also being in NRHO. With the construction of Gateway abandoned, the press briefing said there’s no reason to rendezvous in that particular orbit.
Instead, Orion will dock with Starship HLS in low Earth orbit—matching what it will do on Artemis III. From there, Starship will use its own engines to perform the critical trans-lunar injection burn, putting both craft on course toward the Moon.
NASA and SpaceX describe the new approach as easier to execute, requiring less propellant and therefore fewer refueling flights—directly addressing a common criticism leveled against the Artemis architecture.
Artemis III’s ambitions are hard to miss. A mission involving a trio of spacecraft and their respective launch vehicles. including two early prototypes. has never been attempted in the history of spaceflight. Getting even one vehicle off the ground is a challenge. Doing rendezvous and docking twice during the same mission adds a new layer of complexity.
There is also another timing pressure on the program: the schedule depends on what it will take to make it all happen in the next ~18 months. Even with International Space Station experience making subsequent rendezvous between two craft relatively routine. the leap to a two-docking. three-vehicle sequence is still enormous.
And it arrives against a background of setbacks. The briefing notes the recent New Glenn explosion that left Blue Origin’s launchpad in shambles. For Artemis III, it will be a test not just of vehicles and procedures, but of how quickly partners can recover and keep the timeline moving.
For now, NASA has the piece it needed most to begin turning the plan into a mission: the crew. Bresnik, Rubio, Parmitano, and Douglas will carry that experience toward a 2027 launch designed to prove that the choreography can work—before anyone tries to commit to the lunar surface.
NASA Artemis III Artemis IV Orion SpaceX Starship HLS Blue Origin Blue Moon MK2 New Glenn Crew Dragon Axiom Space lunar landers rendezvous docking International Space Station