Meet NASA’s Artemis III Astronauts

Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio, Andre Douglas, and Luca Parmitano combined bring thousands of hours of flight experience.

Jack Daleo

Tuesday, June 09, 2026 at 05:25 PM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Zach Vasile

NASA on Tuesday announced the crewmembers for its Artemis III mission (from left): NASA astronaut Andre Douglas, European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, and NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik and Frank Rubio. [Credit: NASA/Bill Stafford]

Key Takeaways:

NASA announced the four-member crew for the Artemis III mission, led by Commander Randy Bresnik and including Luca Parmitano as the first ESA astronaut, with a symbolic "passing of the baton" from the Artemis II crew.
The Artemis III mission has been repurposed from a lunar landing to a critical low-Earth orbit (LEO) test, scheduled for no earlier than mid-2025, focusing on validating commercial Human Landing Systems (HLS) from SpaceX and Blue Origin.
This LEO mission will perform crucial tests, including rendezvous, docking, and in-lander operations with both HLS vehicles, despite significant ongoing development challenges and required demonstrations (e.g., in-space propellant transfer, uncrewed lunar landings) that the contractors still need to complete.

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On Tuesday, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch—three of the four crewmembers on NASA’s historic Artemis II mission in April—literally passed the baton to the next four astronauts participating in the space agency’s lunar exploration program.

“We’ve been carrying these batons around for way too long,” Wiseman told Randy Bresnik, who NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman on Tuesday named the commander of the low-Earth orbit (LEO) Artemis III mission. “You’ve got the controls.”