NASA named three U.S. astronauts and an Italian astronaut on Tuesday (June 9, 2026) to serve as the crew for its next Artemis mission, a spacecraft docking demonstration in ‌Earth’s orbit next year that will test moon landers from Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin for the ​first time in space.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, at a ceremony in Houston, named U.S. astronauts Andre Douglas, Frank Rubio and ⁠Randy Bresnik and Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency as the crew for Artemis III. It is due to launch late next year, with no specific date yet announced.

“Artemis III is an incredibly exciting, complicated and highly coordinated multi-launch campaign,” Jeremy Parsons, NASA’s Artemis program manager, said at the Houston event. “It’s going to happen ‌in a short period of time with three of the world’s most powerful rockets.”

Mr. Bresnik, 58, a former test pilot and a veteran of three spaceflights, was named mission commander. The crew also includes a space record-holder, a first-time space traveler and the first ‌European national to join an Artemis mission.

Key test of landers

The mission will be a delicate dance in low-Earth orbit of multiple spacecraft involved in NASA’s ‌complex ⁠Artemis program, the flagship U.S. effort to return people to the moon for a long-term presence. The program faces competitive pressure ⁠from China, which is targeting its own 2030 crewed moon landing.

Though the two-week Artemis III mission will not approach the moon, it is seen as a key debut test of the two primary moon landers NASA will use on subsequent Artemis missions to put astronauts on the lunar surface.

SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon will take turns docking with NASA’s ​Orion, the astronaut capsule that launches off Earth atop NASA’s ‌Space Launch System. The three spacecraft will test docking mechanisms and hover around each other in low-Earth orbit before returning to Earth.

Moon landing expected in 2028

Three U.S. astronauts and a Canadian astronaut flew around the moon and back in April on NASA’s Artemis II mission, following Artemis I in 2022, a similar flight but without a crew. The second crewed voyage in NASA’s Artemis program, Artemis III is the final mission planned before the space ‌agency attempts to land astronauts on the lunar surface in 2028.

First to launch to orbit in the Artemis III mission sequence will ​be Blue Moon, followed by the launch of Orion carrying the astronauts, Parsons said. The two spacecraft will dock for about two days while the astronauts conduct tests and technology demos in Blue Moon.

Blue Moon will undock from Orion, making ⁠way for Starship, which will then attempt to dock for a day before returning to Earth.

Spacecraft delays

SpaceX and Blue Origin have faced years of delays in the development of their landers. Last year, the companies pitched NASA on sped-up development plans that prompted a reshuffling of the agency’s Artemis program, giving rise ‌to the Artemis III docking mission.

The 2027 mission would require both SpaceX’s Starship and a prototype version of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon to be ready for launch at nearly the same time. SpaceX last month test-launched a new version of its Starship rocket with upgrades for moon missions.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded on its launchpad in Florida last month as it was preparing to launch a batch of Amazon satellites. The explosion destroyed much of the company’s only launchpad and grounded for at least several months the rocket that Blue Origin aims to use to launch its Blue Moon lander, which is being ground-tested in Houston and Florida.

Blue Origin’s moon chief John Couluris said at the event on Tuesday that the company has made “excellent” progress on ‌its investigation into the explosion’s cause. The company’s CEO expects New Glenn to return to the pad by the end of the year.

“We are confident that New Glenn will ​be ready for Artemis III,” NASA’s Parsons said on Tuesday.

Boon for Italy

The inclusion of Mr. Parmitano, 49, in the Artemis mission marks a win for Italy at a politically sensitive time for NASA’s closest international partners.

Mr. Isaacman, in his reshuffling of the Artemis ⁠program this year, cancelled plans for a moon-orbiting space station called Gateway, heeding the accelerated lander development plans from SpaceX and Blue Origin and putting greater focus ⁠on building a lunar surface base instead.

The decision blindsided NASA allies that had spent years building key Gateway parts, including the European Space Agency, Canada and Japan. NASA soon after signed an agreement with Italy for help building the moon base.

Mr. Parmitano joined the ESA ‌astronaut corps in 2009 and has flown to space twice. He is the first ESA astronaut to join an Artemis mission and the second non-U.S. member after the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen flew on Artemis II.

Italian Space Agency President Teodoro Valente said in a statement that Parmitano’s ​selection as pilot for Artemis III “confirms and enhances the role and capabilities of the European and Italian space system in the human exploration of the universe.”

Published – June 10, 2026 11:56 am IST

This image taken from video provided by NASA shows the Earth, left, from NASA’s Orion spacecraft as it fired its engines heading toward the moon on Thursday, April 2, 2026.
| Photo Credit: NASA via AP

In the 1960s Ed Dwight was the first Black astronaut candidate — but he never got his chance to go to the Moon.

He said he’s now living out that once-denied dream vicariously through Victor Glover, who is set to make history on the Artemis 2 Moon mission that could take off as soon as Wednesday (April 1, 2026).

Mr. Glover is a 49-year-old veteran astronaut set to become the first Black person — and first person of color — to embark on a lunar voyage.

For Mr. Dwight, the achievement is personal.

The 92-year-old paved the way for diversifying the astronaut corps more than half-a-century ago, and later served as a mentor to Mr. Glover.

“I have a personal attachment and affiliation with Victor, because I met him when he was 15 years old, and we had a program where we were trying to encourage young Black candidates to go to pilot training and to get into flying,” Mr. Dwight said.

“And never in a thousand years did I ever think that Victor would take it to heart and take it to the Moon, which is what he’s done,” the pioneering astronaut told AFP.

“I’m really living my old 92 years through Victor — I’m really proud.”

Racist backlash

In 1961, the civil rights movement was intensifying across the United States as Mr. Dwight was serving as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force.

He was invited to join a training program that would set him up to become the nation’s first Black astronaut.

Mr. Dwight says that it wasn’t until later in his career that he understood that President John F. Kennedy at the time was seeking to garner Black support, and that “it was proposed to him that if he were to appoint a Black astronaut, it would ensure him the Black vote.”

The move immediately sparked fierce backlash.

“The people who make astronauts fought it and said ‘This guy will last about six weeks,'” Mr. Dwight recalls. “It was so crazy, all the stuff that I went through and had to face, all that criticism that Black people were too ignorant and ill-equipped.”

But he held his ground: “I ended up ranked higher in the class than 10 white guys.”

But in 1963, JFK was assassinated in Dallas — a tragedy that marked the end of Mr. Dwight’s spaceflight dreams.

He was repeatedly told that America wasn’t ready for a Black astronaut, and that he’d arrived “20 years too early.”

It wasn’t until 1983 that NASA flew its first African American astronaut, Guion Bluford.

The historic journey took place three years after the Soviet Union sent the first person of color into space, the Cuban Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez.

And in 2024, Mr. Dwight finally made it to space aboard a suborbital space tourism flight operated by Blue Origin, the private space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos.

‘American hero’

The astronaut corps has become far more diverse since Mr. Dwight’s era.

But the upcoming journey of both Mr. Glover and Christina Koch — who is set to become the first woman to embark on a lunar mission — mark significant achievements.

The milestones contrast with the Donald Trump administration’s repeated attacks on diversity policies.

Since the Republican’s return to power and subsequent executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion terminology, NASA has scrubbed its public commitment to send the first woman and first person of color to the lunar surface in missions to come.

That’s cast doubt on what crews for the next phases of Artemis will look like.

The President’s efforts have also taken aim at content displayed in museums — a move critics denounce as revisionist history.

“I feel badly about and very disappointed in America,” Mr. Dwight said.

“What kind of country have we become that we would elect some person that would take and nullify all the contributions, and the wonderful contributions, if you will, that Blacks and women have made to this story and throw it away?”

“Trying to erase all this history is an absolute tragedy,” he added.

But the eternal optimist said he draws strength from the example set by Mr. Glover: “He’s a natural American hero, in my opinion.”

Mr. Glover, Mr. Dwight said, will “be up here in in the Neil Armstrong territory of people of great accomplishments.”

“He’s done it all, and they can’t take that away from him.”

Published – April 01, 2026 02:54 pm IST