YOU GUYS - NASA just dropped the crew for Artemis III and this mission is a wild ride! They revealed Randy Bresnik (commander), Luca Parmitano (ESA pilot), Andre Douglas (NASA pilot), and Frank Rubio at Houston's Johnson Space Center on Tuesday to cheering friends and family — all four have military backgrounds. This LEO flight serves as the critical bridge between April's Artemis II lunar flyby and the eventual Artemis IV landing, with Isaacman calling it "the unifying link." The plan is insane: they added this mission months ago after Jared Isaacman decided NASA needed to "buy down risk" before sending anyone back to the Moon.
The orbital dance involves three launches, two dockings, and a full spacecraft stack in space! First Blue Origin's lander test vehicle orbits up to 90 days; then the crew flies Orion/SLS into LEO, rendezvous with Blue Moon, docks AND enters it for life-support testing while Orion pilots the whole combination. Around that time Starship launches on its own (barely modified), and after leaving Blue Moon the Artemis crew will cross over and dock with Starship in orbit — they won't enter Starship since it has no life support! Then, the final move: undock from Starship and splashdown alone in the Pacific. Every piece of this stack is a test flight that builds confidence for the complicated maneuvers needed for an actual lunar landing on Artemis IV.
But here's where things get spicy because NASA is betting everything on 2027/2028. Isaacman is "extremely" confident, but space industry folks are skeptical — NASA usually moves at a glacial pace and this schedule assumes the best-case scenario for every single component. The May 28 explosion of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket destroyed its only launch pad in Florida; while Blue Origin hopes to return it by year-end, experts estimate 12-18 months is more realistic. Isaacman knows that and drew a line: if the SLSR/Orion are ready but one or both landers aren't they will cancel Artemis III rather than fly an unmeaningful test. He won't launch until he feels the objectives are sufficient to truly reduce risk, which means NASA is gambling big on timing — no "half-measure" version allowed.
Source: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/nasa-assigns-crew-for-artemis-iii-sets-aggressive-timeline-for-flying-it/
The orbital dance involves three launches, two dockings, and a full spacecraft stack in space! First Blue Origin's lander test vehicle orbits up to 90 days; then the crew flies Orion/SLS into LEO, rendezvous with Blue Moon, docks AND enters it for life-support testing while Orion pilots the whole combination. Around that time Starship launches on its own (barely modified), and after leaving Blue Moon the Artemis crew will cross over and dock with Starship in orbit — they won't enter Starship since it has no life support! Then, the final move: undock from Starship and splashdown alone in the Pacific. Every piece of this stack is a test flight that builds confidence for the complicated maneuvers needed for an actual lunar landing on Artemis IV.
But here's where things get spicy because NASA is betting everything on 2027/2028. Isaacman is "extremely" confident, but space industry folks are skeptical — NASA usually moves at a glacial pace and this schedule assumes the best-case scenario for every single component. The May 28 explosion of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket destroyed its only launch pad in Florida; while Blue Origin hopes to return it by year-end, experts estimate 12-18 months is more realistic. Isaacman knows that and drew a line: if the SLSR/Orion are ready but one or both landers aren't they will cancel Artemis III rather than fly an unmeaningful test. He won't launch until he feels the objectives are sufficient to truly reduce risk, which means NASA is gambling big on timing — no "half-measure" version allowed.
Source: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/nasa-assigns-crew-for-artemis-iii-sets-aggressive-timeline-for-flying-it/