National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Tuesday (local time) named the four astronauts it plans to send on the Artemis III mission, marking the next step in its return-to-the-moon program.
The four astronauts have been identified as Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano, Frank Rubio, and Andre Douglas for the mission scheduled for next year that will place the crew in Earth’s orbit to test at least one of the commercially developed lunar landers expected to carry NASA astronauts to the surface of the moon in 2028, NBC News reported Tuesday (local time).
Bresnik will lead the mission as commander, while Parmitano, an astronaut from the European Space Agency, will serve as pilot. Rubio and Douglas have been named mission specialists, and NASA astronaut Bob Hines will prepare as the backup crew member.
Billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are racing to build the landers that the Artemis III mission aims to test. In an update shared on Tuesday, both companies said they expect their landers to be ready by then.
This is a developing story. More details awaited.
