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NASA on Tuesday revealed the astronauts slated to fly the Artemis III Mission set to lift off next year after the successful Artemis II mission, part of the Artemis Program aiming to put humanity back on the Lunar surface with Artemis IV in 2028.
NASA Artemis III Crew: Who Are They?
The four-member crew features NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, who will serve as the commander of the mission. The European Space Agency’s (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano will also join the crew as a pilot.
NASA also said that astronauts Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio were assigned as mission specialists. NASA astronaut Bob Hines was named as the backup crew member for the mission.
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Bresnik has previously been a part of multiple missions to the International Space Station and has logged over 7,000 flying hours across 95 aircraft types and is a retired U.S. Marine Colonel. The Artemis III mission would be Parmitano’s third space flight.
Rubio, on the other hand, broke the record for the longest single-duration spaceflight by an American astronaut with 371 days in orbit. Artemis III will be Douglas’ maiden spaceflight. He also served as a backup astronaut for the Artemis II mission.
Artemis III Mission
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in the statement that the “Artemis III will demonstrate the power of American innovation and international partnership,” adding that the mission would also test “complex rendezvous and docking operations and advance the technologies that will one day carry us deeper into the solar system.”
Artemis III is a low-Earth-orbit mission in 2027 that will test the docking and rendezvous capabilities of Orion and the test versions of the commercial human landing systems developed by SpaceX and Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin.
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NASA says that the Blue Origin Pathfinder lander would initially launch and stay in orbit. Orion would then arrive with the crew, dock with the Blue Origin test article for about two days of checks and demonstrations, then separate and later rendezvous with a SpaceX Starship pathfinder for about a day of connected testing.
NASA’s Moon Base Goals
The mission will help the agency chart a path towards establishing a permanent presence on the Moon, with Isaacman saying that the base would serve as a place for astronauts to stay and work out of during longer-duration missions in outer space.
Elon Musk also shared that SpaceX was working on developing a self-growing city on the Moon, estimating that the goal could be achieved in less than 10 years on the Moon compared to Mars. Notably, humanity hasn’t been back to the Lunar surface since the Apollo Program in the 60s and 70s.
Photo courtesy: Pandora Pictures / Shutterstock.com
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