Artemis III is the third mission in Nasa’s Artemis program, which aims to land humans on the moon in 2028.

Nasa has named three US astronauts and an Italian astronaut to ⁠serve as ‌the ‌crew for its next ⁠Artemis moon programme mission, ‌a spacecraft docking demonstration in Earth’s ⁠orbit ⁠next year that will test key systems ahead ‌of a ⁠2028 moon landing. The astronauts are Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio, the mission specialists; Luca Parmitano of the Italian Space Agency, the pilot; and Randy Bresnik, the commander. But what should have been a celebratory event came in the wake of the explosion of New Glenn, a rocket built by the Jeff Bezos-owned space company Blue Origin. That failure caused damage that could push back the launch of Artemis III, or rule out Blue Origin’s participation in the mission. Jared Isaacman, the Nasa administrator, said in a social media post that the agency would be providing a much-anticipated “confidence update” on Artemis III during the crew announcement. Artemis III is the third mission in Nasa’s Artemis program, which aims to land humans on the moon in 2028. But the newly minted crew won’t actually go to the moon. Instead, Nasa plans to send them to low-Earth orbit by mid-2027 to test the ability of its spacecraft to rendezvous and dock with one or two lunar landers. Those landers are being developed by Blue Origin and SpaceX, a rocket company founded by Elon Musk. The landers are expected to transfer astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon during the Artemis IV and V missions. Nasa planned to test parts of this procedure during Artemis III. The New Glenn rocket is supposed to carry Blue Origin’s lander to space. But the rocket blew up during a test fire at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on May 28th. That explosion damaged the only launch pad Blue Origin has available to fly New Glenn. Experts say repairs could take months, if not longer. That’s a problem for the accelerated timeline Nasa is aiming for with the Artemis program: if New Glenn has nowhere to launch from by the time Artemis III is ready to fly, the mission might need to be delayed. Or the agency might choose to test manoeuvres solely with SpaceX’s lunar lander, though that company has experienced its own setbacks. [ Moon base plans revealed as Nasa chief says ‘the grand return is close at hand’ – The Irish TimesOpens in new window ] “If anyone can do it, they can,” said Casey Dreier, the chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, referring to SpaceX and its ability to be ready for the Artemis III mission in 2027. But, Dreier added, the company will “have to demonstrate a lot of capabilities that haven’t yet been attempted”. Two days before the New Glenn explosion, Nasa announced that it had tapped Blue Origin to use the rocket to send rovers to the moon as soon as 2028. An earlier version of Blue Origin’s lunar lander was also scheduled to launch on New Glenn later this year to send scientific instruments to the moon that would help lower the risk in future crewed landings. Nasa is working with Blue Origin to assess the cause of the rocket failure and recover the launch pad. “We will fly again before the end of this year,” Dave Limp, the CEO of Blue Origin, wrote in a social media post. Historical precedent suggests that it might take longer. In 2016, a SpaceX rocket exploded on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral; afterwards, flights from that launch pad did not occur for nearly 16 months. A rocket flown by Orbital Sciences, now part of Northrop Grumman, exploded shortly after lift-off from a Nasa facility in 2014, and it took nearly two years for that launch pad to be used again. “It’s really hard to imagine them being back up in the air by the end of 2026, but anything is possible,” said Kathleen Curlee, a space research analyst at Georgetown University, referring to Blue Origin. Artemis III was originally set to launch in 2028 and become the first Nasa mission to land humans on the lunar surface in more than 50 years. But in February, the space agency announced that the mission would be moved to next year, and serve as a test flight before two lunar landing attempts in 2028. The shift makes Artemis III a simpler, less risky mission. Still, the accelerated timeline leaves the Artemis III crew with no more than a year to bond and prepare for a somewhat undefined mission, if Nasa meets its goal of launching the astronauts by mid-2027. (The Artemis II astronauts, who in April completed a 10-day journey around the moon, underwent three years of training.) Nasa’s process for selecting astronauts to fly on Artemis missions is secret. There are 37 active astronauts eligible for flight assignment. Three of them – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch – already flew on Artemis II. Nasa once committed to land the first woman, the first person of colour and the first non-American astronaut on the lunar surface, and Artemis II was a step in that direction. Glover was the first Black man to visit the vicinity of the moon, and Koch became the first woman. Jeremy Hansen, the fourth Artemis II crew member, was the first Canadian. But those astronauts were chosen in 2023, well before the second Trump administration took office and initiated a federal crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion. Weeks after US president Donald Trump’s sweeping DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) ban in 2025, Nasa removed language from its website that pledged to land a diverse set of astronauts on the moon. Tuesday’s announcement will reveal if Artemis III’s crew will reflect as broad a swath of society as the last one did.

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