Artemis III Crew Named as SpaceX Starship Prepares Its Lunar Role

NASA named its four-member Artemis III crew, with a SpaceX Starship-derived lander set to carry astronauts to the lunar surface.

June 13, 20263 min read

Artemis III Crew Named as SpaceX Starship Prepares Its Lunar Role

HOUSTON — NASA has named the astronauts who will fly Artemis III, the mission intended to return humans to the Moon, and SpaceX sits at the center of the plan. At a June 9 ceremony at Johnson Space Center, the agency introduced the crew who will help validate the systems needed to land on the lunar surface for the first time in more than half a century. The lander at the heart of that effort is a version of SpaceX's Starship, the vehicle the company is building for the Moon and Mars.

Meet the Crew

The Artemis III assignment went to NASA astronauts Andre Douglas, Frank Rubio, and Randy Bresnik, joined by European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano. The roster pairs a first-time flier in Douglas with veterans who bring deep station and spacewalk experience, a balance NASA said it chose deliberately for one of the most complex missions the agency has ever attempted.

NASA flight operations leaders described the assignment as a turning point, the moment an abstract program became a named crew training toward a specific goal. For the astronauts, it begins years of preparation for a flight that will test the hardware and procedures behind a lunar landing.

Starship Takes the Lead Role

SpaceX holds NASA's Human Landing System contract, which makes a Starship-derived lander the vehicle slated to carry astronauts from lunar orbit down to the surface. The choice reflects confidence in the Starship architecture, the fully reusable system designed to move large payloads and crews beyond Earth orbit.

Artemis III Crew Named as SpaceX Starship Prepares Its Lunar Role — additional image

The crew is expected to launch as soon as late 2027 into low Earth orbit to rehearse rendezvous and docking with the commercial landers, a vital dress rehearsal before a surface landing targeted for 2028. That sequencing puts SpaceX hardware at the core of the timeline that brings Americans back to the Moon.

Building Toward the Landing

Before astronauts ride Starship to the Moon, SpaceX must demonstrate in-orbit propellant transfer at scale, fueling a single lander with a series of tanker launches. That capability depends on the rapid cadence of the Starship test program, which is advancing hardware for its next flight.

Each successful test pushes the system closer to the propellant-transfer milestone that unlocks lunar missions, and SpaceX has shown it can iterate faster than any rocket program in history.

A New Era of Exploration

With a crew named and Starship maturing, the pieces of a sustained lunar return are falling into place. SpaceX remains the only American company contracted to build the rocket capable of landing humans on the Moon and, eventually, carrying them to Mars. The countdown to humanity's next steps on another world has a crew, a lander, and a clear path forward.

Artemis III Crew Named as SpaceX Starship Prepares Its Lunar Role

Meet the Crew

Starship Takes the Lead Role

Building Toward the Landing

A New Era of Exploration

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