NASA announces its Artemis III crew, which will test important equipment and systems in Earth orbit and is testing public opinion

Over the span of a few short months in 2026, NASA’s Artemis III mission lost its original purpose, but gained a crew and some controversy over its composition. In February 2026, as its predecessor Artemis II was experiencing launch delays, NASA announced the addition of a mission between Artemis II and the first Artemis lunar landing, originally set for Artemis III. This change meant Artemis III would no longer land at the lunar south pole. The reason for the shift was concerns about safety. NASA wanted an extra mission to test out the technology the crew would later use for a lunar landing. The agency released the new Artemis III mission objectives in May 2026, and in June it announced the crew: Andre Douglas, Randy Bresnik and Frank Rubio from NASA, as well as Luca Parmitano from the European Space Agency. As planetary geologists, my colleagues and I are excited by this next phase of lunar exploration as humans get closer to the prospect of in-person fieldwork on the Moon again. Douglas’ work at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory overlapped with spacecraft exploration programs some of my colleagues participated in as scientists. Crewed and robotic spaceflight communities are…

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