NASA announces crew and flight plan for Artemis-3 Earth orbit mission next year
NASA today unveiled both the four-person crew that will fly its Artemis-3 Earth orbit mission next year as well as the mission’s basic plan, assuming both SpaceX and Blue Origin can get their respective lunar landers ready in time.
Crew assignments are as follows:
- NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, commander
- ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano, pilot
- NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, mission specialist
- NASA astronaut Andre Douglas, mission specialist
… NASA astronaut Bob Hines was named as a backup crew member.
Except for Douglas, all are veterans.
The mission details were also announced:
Artemis III includes launching the world’s most powerful rockets in short order. Blue Origin’s lander pathfinder, which is able to stay in orbit for multiple weeks, will launch first and await the crew. NASA will send the astronauts aboard Orion by SLS to orbit Earth, before rendezvousing in space with the company’s lander test article and spending about two days docked together for tests and technology demonstrations, including entering the lander.
After completing docked operations with Blue Origin, Orion will detach and await Starship. SpaceX’s Starship pathfinder will launch and meet up with Orion to spend about a day connected for checkouts and testing. After that, Orion and its crew will undock and return home, splashing safely down in the Pacific Ocean where a team from the U.S. Navy and NASA will recover the astronauts.
In total, the crew is expected to remain in space for about two weeks, with exact mission length to be determined in real-time based on launch, rendezvous, and docked operations.
All of this assumes that New Glenn has been fixed and is operational by late 2027 and can launch the Blue Moon Mark-2 manned lunar lander. It also assumes the lunar lander version of Starship is ready and operational and man-rated. It also assumes NASA can get SLS stacked and ready for launch much faster than previously expected.
All are big assumptions.
Other issues: Orion will be testing its docking system and its newly redesigned heat shield for the first time, with humans on board. As the return will be from low Earth orbit, the stress on the heat shield will be relatively light, reducing the risk considerably. Similarly, if the docking system fails they simply won’t dock, and can return to Earth instead. Both should work, however, as neither is cutting edge technology.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
”It also assumes NASA can get SLS stacked and ready for launch much faster than previously expected.”
It assumes no such thing. All of the components of the SLS for this launch have been built and are at the launch site nearly ready for stacking. The SLS could, if it were required, be ready for launch by the end of *this* year. It’s the rest of the Artemis III mission that won’t be ready until the end of next year.
So once again the SLS will be sitting around for a year waiting for its payload.
Blame Congress for not funding a lunar lander on a more intelligent schedule. The responsibility ultimately lies with them, and with NASA’s leadership for not pushing them much harder on it earlier. This should also tell you how irrelevant the SLS program is to Congress. If they cared they’d have put more effort into a sensible program or listened to the White House. That they did not should make it abundantly clear what they actually care about, if their numerous statements hadn’t already–their power, and jobs, and little more.
And yet, SLS is far more ready than non-existent Lunar Starship
Not so surprisingly, there’s endless heartburn in the usual places online over the lack of any women on the crew or the backup.
Granted, NASA’s astronaut corps is now 42% women
But that doesn’t mean any guarantee that 42% of every crew has to be 42% women. Or for that matter, 58% men.
Richard M: Note that I make no mention of race or gender in my report of this announcement. It is irrelevant, just as the color of their eyes or their hair is irrelevant.
Imagine if I reported NASA’s new astronaut crew is the first to include two men of baldness, and one man of greying hair. It would be ridiculous. As it was when NASA during the Biden administration made a big deal about race and sex in every press release about Artemis-2.
I think you mean Artemis-2, not Artemis-1. Artemis-1 neatly avoided all DEI issues by not having any crew at all.
Dick: Yes, that is a typo. Fixed.
Well, at least crash test dummies were de-segregated in that plane crash
Wunnerful
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/health/group-pushes-gender-equity-vehicle-crash-testing.amp
In other news, Bezos announced he was going to supply the Trump/America 250 celebration with fireworks….wait…that happened already….Bubbles assured Mr. Bezos that that can happen to anyone…
And that’s just as it should be, Bob!
I felt I had to note the reaction of some *other* people, in order to highlight what a relief it is that at BEHIND THE BLACK, you do not lead with such stuff. And yes, also to highlight that the mindsets that gave us DEI are still very much alive and well, including in the space industry, alas. Even Lori Garver was softly complaining about ” unconscious bias.” We have a long way to go to get back to sanity.
Arty III is in Earth Orbit anyway, so no biggie.
An actual lunar landing probably will have at least one lady, were I to hazard a guess.
The Germans are slightly shocked as well that an Italian and not — as decided earlier by ESA’s DG Aschbacher — a German will participate. I can only speculate that the mostly good American-Italian relationship played a role here while the Germans pay (again) for their passive-aggressive TDS and dishonest and weak behaviors. Congrats to both.
https://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article6a28401a87d7db02baee08c8/mondmission-2027-ueberraschend-ohne-deutschen-astronauten-italiener-ergattert-platz-in-artemis-3.html
That makes Aschbacher an even better actor than I gave him credit for. He was all smiles and bonhomie at the Artemis-3 presentation.
They should count themselves happy, because this means that when it’s finally the turn of ESA to have a seat on a Moon mission, a German will have prime crack at that. Surely that beats a LEO mission?
Good point. My schadenfreude was perhaps too early.
Perhaps not. I noticed a lot of smiles on the JAXA astronaut contingent in the audience. Perhaps they already know – or at least strongly suspect – that one of them is going to be the fourth-seater on Artemis-4 with the Germans, once again, being sidelined. That would, actually, be quite a reasonable development even apart from any geopolitical tensions. Artemis-2 carried a Canadian and Artemis-3 will carry a European. So it is entirely likely that Artemis-4 will include a JAXAn.
I’m sure the DEI Police do have their panties in a twist over the Artemis-3 crew’s lack of Estrogen People – or whatever the current politically correct euphemism for women is. That said, the crew hardly looks like a Klan meeting.
The rookie on the crew, Andre Douglas, is black, but he’s there because he was also the back-up crewman for Artemis-2 and is already well-trained and up to cruising speed on Orion systems and procedures – more than any of his spaceflight-veteran crewmates at this point.
The other mission specialist, Frank Rubio, is Hispanic but is also a spaceflight veteran, a medical doctor, a pilot and the current US record-holder for longest space mission at 371 days.
The Artemis-3 pilot, Luca Parmitano, is a veteran ESA astronaut, an Italian Air Force pilot and has a demonstrated track record of keeping his head in trying circumstances courtesy of that very dicey water-in-the-EVA-suit-helmet incident some years ago. He’s the Neil Armstrong of the Artemis-3 crew.
The mission commander, Randy Bresnik, is a former Marine Corps test pilot and a veteran of both a Shuttle and a Soyuz mission to ISS on both of which he did multiple spacewalks.
Andre Douglas was the obvious slam-dunk choice for Artemis-3 given his Artemis-2 back-up role. Any of the rest of the crew might straightforwardly have been substituted for by other equally qualified and experienced members of the US and ESA – or JAXA – astronaut rosters, but that is simply because all three programs have excellent “benches.”
Astronauts not chosen for Artemis-3 still have shots at selection for future Artemis missions and I expect every one of them who does not retire in the interim to fly on such by, say, the early-2030s. Once Starship replaces SLS-Orion, the pace of Artemis missions should pick up smartly and they will all be lunar surface missions. They should quickly ramp well up from a mere four crew per mission too.
On other matters anent the Artemis-3 presentation, I had two surprises:
First was that Blue Origin not only intends to be a part of same, but to do so with its full-up Mk-2 lander, not some Mk-1.5 compromise cobble job. If Dave Limp and his folks can, indeed, both pull off a New Glenn return-to-flight by the end of this year and have a Mk-2 ready for Artemis-3 next year, he will join the pantheon of great space executives as a full member. I have my doubts, but I’m pulling for them.
Second was that SpaceX does not appear to intend to provide a full-up HLS lander version of Starship for Artemis-3, just a “standard” Starship with a nose-mounted docking adapter suitable for practice link-ups but not for boarding by the crew.
SpaceX’s rep at the Artemis-3 event said the crew cabin for the first HLS Starship is well underway at the Starbase Starfactory, but SpaceX evidently intends to use the first full-up HLS Starship lander for the required unmanned transit, landing, loiter and ascent demo needed prior to Artemis-4 – said unmanned demo mission to be, it seems, entirely separate from Artemis-3.
The second HLS Starship lander will, then, be used on the Artemis-4 mission and will also dock with Orion in LEO and provide Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) for the mission, with Orion to be left parked in a low lunar orbit rather than the distant Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit that launch of an Orion on a current-model SLS Block 1 would require were TLI to be provided by the underpowered Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS). Artemis-4’s SLS will, then, be flown using a second of the ICPS stand-in spacer-adapters, the first of which is now under construction at Marshall Space Flight Center for Artemis-3.
SpaceX’s Artemis concept of operations makes some sense in that, even though a full-up HLS Starship lander won’t figure in Artemis-3, there won’t be any untried componentry on the unit used for Artemis-4. The docking adapter is nearly identical to that used on Dragon 2 as will be the life support hardware. The former will get a test as part of Artemis-3. The “high-pockets” landing thrusters and the landing legs will get their trial on the unmanned landing test mission.
All in all, NASA’s Artemis-3 presentation was both informative and a nice piece of theater. The players on stage all seemed quite delighted to be there and did their parts – to the accompaniment of some Avenger-ish music – quite well. I give them all good notices.
The NYT has an article I do not understand:
“Blue Origin’s Rocket Explosion Complicates a Return to the Moon.”
I did not think their lunar lander project needed anything from their rocket, unlike SpaceX which needs a production SuperHeavy and Starship with the ability to do about a dozen cycles in a month for propellent management.
GeorgeC: Blue Origin had always planned to launch its manned lunar lander using New Glenn, which is now grounded because of that launchpad explosion.
To mkent
You can’t tell that to NewSpacer religionists…the only parts of Artemis that works is what they want to kill.
Jeff,
Do you have an argument to make, or just pejorative jabs intended to irritate? Do you have any notion of an ultimate purpose for people–not just the government, but Americans in general–spending money on space?
Don’t expect an answer. Jeff has to get down to the First Church of OldSpace – Huntsville for the nightly prayer meeting and hymn-sing. Tonights selections include ‘A Mighty Orange is Our Rocket’ and ‘Shall We Gather by the Flame Trench.’
Re: Dick Eagleson’s post
A lot of people also seem aggrieved that SpaceX is not supplying a full-up HLS lander for this mission. That includes some people I expected better from.
But you’ve made the important point that mitigates this: SpaceX are already committed to building two HLS variant ships for missions supposedly in the next 18 months, and these ain’t just a dinky Apollo LM, but a 14 story tall vehicle with much greater capabilities and vastly more pressurized volume, and this mission was just thrown at SpaceX several weeks ago.
Yeah, it would better if this were a pressurized HLS they could ingress into and put it through all of its paces, a la Apollo 9. But it’s a question of how long NASA would want to wait for all that.
I have my doubts that Blue Origin will have a Blue Moon ready to go on this schedule anyway.
I wonder if those thus aggrieved would be willing to compensate SpaceX out of their own pockets for the extra expense of providing a complete HLS lander prototype for Artemis-3 that included the landing gear and the ring of landing thrusters even though neither would be exercised on said mission?
As you quite correctly note, this whole revision of Artemis mission sequence is of very recent vintage and – however sensible said revision is – I think SpaceX is being quite magnanimous in providing a third vehicle not covered by its original HLS contract just for this mission. I don’t fault SpaceX at all for keeping this vehicle as close to a “standard” uncrewed Starship as possible.
In any case, saying no to a full-fidelity test article up-front still holds open the possibility of SpaceX later saying ‘yes’ to something a bit beyond just a standard Starship with a nose-ring added. Depending upon how quickly and well Flight 13 and subsequent Starship development flights go – and on how well Blue can keep to its aspirational schedule for return-to-flight of New Glenn and the readying of Blue Moon Mk-2 for Artemis-3 – SpaceX might just be able to offer a Minimum-Viable Habitable Volume behind that nose ring on the Artemis-3 Starship “lander” test article to support some Orion-to-lander ingress/egress practice. It’s not likely this will occur, but never say never. Any delays to Artemis-3 due to other-than-SpaceX causes increase the possibility SpaceX might tart up its Artemis-3 contribution a bit beyond initial plans.
“”Imagine if I reported NASA’s new astronaut crew is the first to include two men of baldness, and one man of greying hair””
While we COMPLETELY agree with the insanity of considering, or even mentioning, race and gender, I feel it is important to note what mom pointed out many moons ago, and l can now personally attest: We earned every one of our grey hairs.
I hate to delve back into this subject, but it seems that the criticism of NASA over the lack of women on Artemis III got bad enough that Jared Isaacman felt forced to address it. Which he did, forcefully:
https://x.com/i/status/2064702792023879811
He said a few other things of note about the mission as well.
Richard M: I don’t think Isaacman was as forceful as he should have been. I think most people are downright sick of this identify politics that acts to disguise pure bigotry and want it to stop.
What I would have said is that these people are nothing more than bigots who put race and gender above talent and personal qualifications, and that such thinking has no place in space or NASA.
Of course, this is why I am not NASA administrator. :)
DEI is essentially dead.
It did not improve society. It improved a few individuals but not Society as a whole.
It often damaged the groups who implemented it.
I don’t think NASA is using DEI anymore. But I could be wrong.
I do think NASA over trains its astronauts.
At this point mildly trained collage grads could do most if not all the work in space. Everything else is automated, like docking and un docking. Ground control could fly the ship up and down fro the station.
pzatchok,
To be fair, when everything works just fine, a monkey could fly the thing. That was demonstrated during Project Mercury. However, when something goes wrong, the monkey cannot correct the problem. That, too, was demonstrated during Project Mercury. It takes a highly trained human to make the system work well enough to continue the mission, when things go wrong. That was demonstrated on several Project Apollo missions. Sometimes things go so wrong that even the highly trained astronauts and the highly trained mission control staff cannot complete the mission. That was demonstrated on Project Mercury, Project Gemini, Project Apollo, and Space Shuttle missions.
Starliner showed us that it can be difficult and scary even for the well trained, highly experienced astronauts.
Space is hard. Space is dangerous.
Thy five segment solids, they comfort me.