COURTESY: NASA

This morning, NASA announced the four crew members who will be leading their Artemis III mission.

NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik will serve as commander. European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano as pilot. NASA astronauts Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio, will serve as mission specialists.

They also named NASA astronaut Bob Hines will work and train alongside these four as a backup crew member.

"Over the next year they will train for their mission, ensure the lessons learned from the prior crew are implemented, and assist in the development of the landers and operational procedures that will be necessary for their colleagues on future Artemis missions. Artemis III will be an extraordinary demonstration of what is possible when the greatest Aerospace companies across the United States alongside our European partners come together to showcase the technological might and ambition of the free world." said Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator

During Artemis III, NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket will launch the Orion spacecraft and its crew from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to low earth orbit.

After Orion systems checkouts, the spacecraft will, for the first time, demonstrate rendezvous and docking capabilities with commercial partners.

While Artemis II brought ‘moon-joy’, Artemis III will bring ‘earth-joy’ by studying the earth’s atmosphere in ways we never have before.

"We will study earth's atmosphere, the environment around Orion during the mission, and the impact of space's influence within the Orion capsule... We'll be doing an observation campaign of the dynamic phenomena on the earth, on our sun and around the environment in space from Orion by using the processes we developed for Artemis II. Having the Artemis crew observe the earth, will be another great exercise for our teams to help guide the way for similar observations on the moon."

"We'll be focused particularly on understanding our earth's atmosphere and the space environment in and around Orion through their observations. By observing earth's atmosphere and how space weather impacts it, we can better understand how to protect the critical space based technology there and all of that we rely on as well as our future astronaut crews travelling through that region." said Dr. Nicky Fox Associate Administrator, NASA Science.

The mission will undertake a series of challenging tests in low earth orbit in 2027, essential for Artemis IV, the first planned crewed mission to the lunar south pole in 2028.