Artemis III

Assembled from 11 blocks · 2 evidence · 3 related

1. Story
2. Planned. Artemis III was for years designated the first crewed lunar landing since 1972, targeting the south pole with a SpaceX Starship Human Landing System. On 27 February 2026 NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced the mission had been re-scoped: Artemis III will instead fly a crewed demonstration in low Earth orbit, where Orion and four crew will rendezvous and dock with test articles of one or both commercial Human Landing Systems — SpaceX's Starship HLS and Blue Origin's Blue Moon MK2 — enter the landers and check out hardware, software, propulsion and suit interfaces. NASA is targeting 2027. The crew was named on 9 June 2026: Randy Bresnik (commander), ESA's Luca Parmitano (pilot, the first ESA astronaut assigned to an Artemis flight), with Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio as mission specialists and Bob Hines as backup. This is a plan, not a prediction; dates and content have already moved once.
3. Knowledge
4. Artemis III
5. Connections
6. NASA restructures Artemis: Artemis III re-scoped, landing moves to Artemis IV
7. NASA names the Artemis III crew
8. Artemis III crewed low Earth orbit demonstration (planned)
9. Evidence
10. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced on 27 February 2026 that Artemis III will no longer attempt a lunar landing but will fly a crewed rendezvous and docking demonstration in low Earth orbit with SpaceX and Blue Origin Human Landing System test articles, targeted for 2027, and that the first crewed lunar landing moves to Artemis IV no earlier than 2028.
11. Names Randy Bresnik as Artemis III commander, ESA's Luca Parmitano as pilot, Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio as mission specialists and Bob Hines as backup, and confirms the low Earth orbit demonstration profile.