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The same vehicle was used for Artemis II in April 2026. Orion will not loop around the Moon this time. Artemis III will remain in low Earth orbit, about 290 miles above Earth. That is roughly the distance from Manchester to Edinburgh, and 40 miles higher than the International Space Station.

The crew will rendezvous and dock with prototype lunar landers there. NASA calls them pathfinders. At least one astronaut will climb into a lander to test hatches, life support connections, and new Axiom spacesuits. Axiom designed the suits with Prada. The Italian fashion house built the inner garment that moves chilled water across the body during spacewalks. Axiom handled the engineering, including a backup cooling loop in case the main system fails. Astronauts will wear the suits for eight-hour spacewalks on the Moon during Artemis IV.

The Artemis III crew will spend two weeks aboard Orion. That is longer than the nine days Artemis II spent in flight. On return, the capsule will test an upgraded heat shield during fiery reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. NASA originally planned Artemis III as the first crewed Moon landing since Apollo 17 in 1972. The agency changed plans in February 2026.

The reason was simple. SpaceX’s Starship lander was not ready. The in-orbit refueling it depends on has never been demonstrated. Rather than delay again, NASA repurposed the mission. It will now serve as a crewed docking rehearsal. That way, the docking techniques and suits will already have been tested with people on board before the landers fly. A US Government Accountability Office report from March 2026 found that SpaceX had made limited progress on in-orbit refueling. The first demonstration is now optimistically scheduled for late 2026.

Meet the Artemis III Crew

Andre Douglas will fly to space for the first time on this mission. NASA selected him as part of its 2021 astronaut candidate class, and he previously served as a backup and closeout crew member for Artemis II

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Douglas is from Virginia. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the US Coast Guard Academy. He also holds four postgraduate degrees from several institutions. Those include a doctorate in systems engineering from George Washington University. 

During his Coast Guard service, he led search-and-rescue, maritime salvage, and drug-interdiction operations. At Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, he designed and tested autonomous vehicles that operate in air, at sea, and in space. He also worked on space exploration systems and undersea warfare platforms.

Meanwhile, mission commander Randy “Komrade” Bresnik was born in Kentucky and graduated from The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the US Marine Corps in May 1989. He flew on the Space Shuttle mission STS-129 and commanded the International Space Station. Bresnik has logged more than 32 hours on five spacewalks, 7,000 flight hours in 95 aircraft, and 3,600 hours in spacecraft.

Dr. Frank Rubio is a Florida native and US Military Academy graduate. He served 28 years in the US Army as an aviator and physician, and completed his medical residency at Fort Benning, Georgia. NASA selected him in 2017. Rubio later set the US record for the longest single spaceflight with 371 consecutive days aboard the International Space Station.

Artemis III will mark mission specialist Luca Parmitano’s third spaceflight. ESA selected him as an astronaut in 2009. He first flew as a flight engineer on the Italian Space Agency’s first long-duration mission to the space station. Parmitano launched on a Soyuz from Baikonur in 2013. He returned to the orbital lab in 2019 aboard Soyuz MS-13. On that mission, he commanded Expedition 61. He became the third European and the first Italian to command the station. A graduate of the Italian Air Force Academy, he became a test pilot in 2007 and was promoted to colonel in 2019. He has logged more than 2,000 flight hours in 40 aircraft.

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This mission will set the stage for Artemis IV. NASA plans to return astronauts to the Moon in 2028. “Today we take another bold step in humanity’s return to the Moon, building on the extraordinary foundation laid by the Artemis II astronauts,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman stated in a written release. “Their achievements reignited global excitement for exploration, and now they pass the torch to the Artemis III team, Randy, Luca, Frank, and Andre.”

Main Image: (from left: Andre Douglas, Luca Parmitano, Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio). Image Credit: NASA/Bill Stafford

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