NASA announced the crew of Artemis III mission, which will fly to low-Earth orbit to test rendezvous and docking maneuvers with one or two lunar landers.

NASA’s next mission in its effort to return humans to the moon will be led by an all-male crew. Three of them have extensive experience in space, while the other was a backup on Artemis II.

Experts have been hopeful, but say the agency’s lunar aspirations are largely at the whims of two billionaires, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

The Artemis III astronauts who were announced today will have had less mission training time than their Artemis II counterparts.

Almost forgotten now, the mission circled the Earth for 10 days, performing a series of tests with the lunar lander. What it lacked in glory it made up for in technological contributions.

NASA’s Artemis program has little room for error if it is to land astronauts on the moon by the end of 2028, but Blue Origin could be out of commission for at least a year.

The space agency announced that the MAVEN spacecraft, which has circled Mars for more than a decade, is being decommissioned.

The rocket, built by the Jeff Bezos-owned space company, was to carry 48 satellites into space. Blue Origin reported on social media that “all personnel have been accounted for.”

The contracts, announced on Tuesday, are part of the space agency’s efforts to establish a moon base.

For a split second, a fireball outshone the rivers of molten lava flowing from the Philippines’ most active volcano.