NASA is picking up the pace on its Artemis III mission preparations, pressing forward on multiple fronts to assemble launch vehicle hardware and beginning routine simulations inside Artemis mission control.

The agency is "full steam ahead," according to a July 13 NASA update. Across Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, components of Artemis III's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket are coming together, undergoing tests and awaiting transportation for final integration ahead of next year's launch. NASA is targeting mid-to-late 2027 for Artemis III, which will launch four astronauts into low Earth orbit (LEO) aboard the Orion spacecraft. It will be the second crewed mission of NASA's Artemis program, which aims to establish a permanent human presence on the moon.

Artemis III will be a critical stepping stone in NASA's lunar landing architecture, despite the mission not actually flying to the moon. Instead, SLS will launch Orion and its four-person crew into LEO for rendezvous and docking operations with the program's two commercial lunar lander vehicles: SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's Blue Moon spacecraft.

With the completion of the massively successful Artemis II mission that flew astronauts around the moon in April and the second half of 2026 beginning to count down, NASA has shifted into full gear to complete assembly and testing of the hardware that will launch Artemis III.

Several components for the mission's SLS rocket have arrived in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at KSC. The SLS core stage was delivered at the end of April, and it was connected with the rocket's engine block section in May. The first two of the core stage's four RS-25 engines arrived in June and will be installed on the SLS engine block once the remaining two are delivered, after which NASA plans to begin integration with the mobile launch platform (MLP) and launch operations tests. A temporary weather cap was also delivered in June, which will protect the stage when NASA transports it to the launch pad for tests before the full vehicle is stacked.

The bottom segments of both SLS solid rocket boosters (SRBs) were delivered over the last week, and they have been mounted on the MLP, according to NASA's update. The upper SRB segments arrived at KSC via train in June and will undergo inspection and testing before the twin boosters are fully stacked.

Inside KSC's Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building, the Artemis III Orion is making significant progress — engineers have now finished installation of the spacecraft's heat shield.

Artemis III will be the first Orion mission to use an upgraded heat shield, featuring design improvements gleaned from analysis of unexpected wear on the heat shield flown on Artemis I. Orion's service module is also currently inside the Operations and Checkout Building and recently completed acoustic testing. Both the service module and Orion capsule are now being prepared for joining and eventual transportation to the VAB for stacking.

The pieces for Artemis III are coming together at @NASAKennedy.The twin solid rocket boosters? They’re getting stacked.The launch team? They’re simulating the countdown.The heat shield? It’s now attached to the Orion spacecraft.Full steam ahead for Artemis III. pic.twitter.com/2f92kv6HEiJuly 13, 2026

On the personnel side of things, Artemis III team members at KSC have begun monthly launch simulation tests to hone procedures for SLS propellant loading, terminal count operations (the final 10 minutes prior to liftoff) and launch day operations. Those tests will continue regularly leading up to Artemis III's launch next year, according to NASA.

As teams across NASA are busy readying all the pieces for Artemis III, others are looking ahead to the program's first lunar landing, planned for Artemis IV. That mission, scheduled for late 2028, will deliver a crew of astronauts to the surface of the moon for the first time since 1972. The SLS that will get them there is also coming together piece by piece.

The liquid oxygen (LOX) tank for the Artemis IV SLS core stage was recently relocated within NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, positioning the tank for testing as it enters its next phase of production.

Before Artemis astronauts land on the Moon’s surface in 2028, NASA will conduct the Artemis III demonstration mission in 2027, allowing teams on Earth and in orbit to practice rendezvous and docking operations between commercial human landing systems and the Orion spacecraft. Data from that mission, along with future uncrewed demonstration missions at the Moon, will support astronaut safety and mission success for crewed lunar landings.

NASA is working with two American companies to develop the human landing systems that will safely transport astronauts from lunar orbit to the Moon’s surface and back for future Artemis missions. For Artemis III, both SpaceX and Blue Origin will fly test versions, or test articles, of the crewed landers that will be used for future Moon landings. The lander test articles will launch by commercial rockets, while the Artemis III crew will launch to low Earth orbit in Orion atop the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket.

Stage setting for crewed flights

NASA and the human landing system providers have been working closely together to plan and determine capabilities for the Artemis III mission. With missions fast approaching, both SpaceX and Blue Origin are optimizing hardware availability and capability. SpaceX plans to use the company’s latest version of Starship and basis of the future Starship HLS, called Version 3, while Blue Origin will test their planned HLS crew cabin, allowing each company to apply lessons learned prior to uncrewed and crewed missions on the Moon.

“Each human landing system provider has taken a different approach to the Artemis III mission,” said Steve Creech, program manager, Human Landing System Program, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “Ultimately, SpaceX and Blue Origin have put forward a list of aggressive objectives and goals intended to complement upcoming uncrewed demonstration missions at the Moon so that we can gain both understanding and confidence in the spacecraft and launch vehicles prior to a crewed landing. The lander prototype designs will inform future development efforts and will continue to mature over the next year.”

For the Artemis III mission, the Blue Moon test lander will be based on Blue Origin’s current architecture for its Mark 2 crew lander, incorporating all the major avionics and flight software and control systems to ensure flight operations from this demonstration mission can directly translate to crewed lunar flights. Up to two crew members, donning orange Orion crew survival system suits, will open the hatch to enter the Blue Origin test lander. The production hardware must incorporate many of the same systems and subsystems, including an Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS), a crew cabin, and avionics.

The Blue Origin lander also will fly with an instrumented lunar surface spacesuit mass simulator. Like the suited “Moonikin” manikin that flew aboard Orion during the uncrewed Artemis I test flight, the low-fidelity spacesuit mass simulator will provide real-time feedback about the environment within the Blue Moon crew cabin.

SpaceX’s Starship lander test article will use a Starship Version 3, currently in production and testing, with an added docking system installed on the nose of the 171-foot (52-m) spacecraft, enabling NASA and SpaceX to evaluate how the entire integrated stack of Orion and the Starship test lander interact. NASA and SpaceX are identifying controllability and communications tests for the Artemis III mission. Astronauts will not enter the Starship test lander during Artemis III.

Launch cadence

NASA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin will launch three of the world’s most powerful rockets within a short timeframe of one another, exercising ground processing, launch crews, and facilities as well as control centers, networking, and data exchange at key sites across the country during two separate, back-to-back rendezvous and docking maneuvers between Orion and the lander test articles, before a safe splashdown of the Artemis III crew in Orion.

“Artemis III will be a highly choreographed dance with a demanding launch sequence across multiple launch pads and equally demanding mission operations for our ground and flight crews, making it one of the most complex and ambitious missions NASA has ever undertaken,” said Jeremy Parsons, Artemis program manager. “The demonstration mission will set the stage before our next giant leap. NASA’s expertise in systems engineering and integration, as well as launch and mission operations in low Earth orbit, will bring the mission together.”

For future crewed missions to the Moon, NASA and one of the commercial lander partners will execute a “dual launch campaign,” prepositioning the lander in orbit to await a crewed Orion, launched on SLS. Launching the three rockets in succession of one another for Artemis III offers a unique opportunity to practice launch processing and operations.

Blue Origin’s lander test article is planned to launch first and will be able to loiter in space for up to 30 days, allowing for checkouts in orbit prior to the launch of SLS and Orion from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Blue Origin test article will launch at a set trajectory to meet a designated “parking” orbit for these systems checks.

Following the completion of Blue Origin’s rendezvous and docking operations testing  and the Artemis III crewed launch on SLS, SpaceX will launch its Starship lander test article to rendezvous with Orion and its crew for its phase of on-orbit testing.

Throughout the Artemis III mission, Orion will fly in a circular orbit. All three rockets will have more launch opportunities than are available for a lunar mission and will be able to reach the designated mission altitude in a single launch.

Docking operations

During docking and undocking operations, Orion and the Artemis III crew will use the lander test articles as the targets, while Orion will operate as the chaser spacecraft. This is the same configuration planned for future crew landing mission to the Moon.

NASA will ensure both test landers are mission ready and crew safe prior to Artemis III. These verifications will be based on functional and performance requirements for the test lander designs and hazard controls for hardware and software, ensuring the Artemis III astronauts inside Orion are safe throughout both docking phases of the mission.

SpaceX and Blue Origin have already tested their docking capabilities for their respective landers on the ground. SpaceX’s docking capability was qualified in 2023; Blue Origin conducted development ground testing on its pressurized docking system earlier this year.

A key difference between the docking capabilities of both lander test articles will be the location of docking. Orion will dock along the side of the Blue Moon test lander, adjacent to the crew cabin. Later, Orion will dock nose-to-nose with the giant SpaceX test lander.

Software testing between spacecrafts will help demonstrate that the commercial human landing system prototypes and Orion can meet at a precise time and location in space. When Orion docks with the Blue Moon test lander, the Orion spacecraft’s software will control the docked spacecraft. Meanwhile, the SpaceX test article will control the docked spacecraft for the second portion of the mission. During the docking phases, teams with NASA and the commercial partners will be able to test hardware and software interoperability, as well as dynamics of how the integrated lander-Orion spacecraft moves in space.

Through the Artemis program, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars – for the benefit of all.  

News Media Contact

AmberJacobson
Headquarters, Washington
240.298.1832
amber.c.jacobson@nasa.gov

Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov

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The assembly of NASA's next Artemis rocket is well underway, with the recent arrival of one of the launch vehicle's solid fuel booster sections to the agency's integration facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The bottom segment of the left-hand solid rocket booster (SRB) that will help launch Artemis III was transported to KSC's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) this week, according to a NASA social media post. It's one of two SRBs that will be affixed to either side of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which together provide a combined 7.2 million pounds of force — more than 75% of the rocket's power at liftoff.

"Soon, assembly of the rocket will begin as we prepare to send crew aboard Orion to test the rendezvous and docking capabilities needed for future lunar landings," the NASA post said.

It took about one year for NASA to stack the Artemis II SLS once each of the rocket's components were delivered to the VAB. The same timeline gives Artemis III a small amount of wiggle room, as it progresses toward a targeted launch in mid-to-late 2027 — and stacking of the entire rocket may not begin immediately.

The Artemis III SLS core stage arrived in the VAB in May. Unlike the core stage's arrival for Artemis II, Artemis III's was delivered without the engine section. Once that's attached, it may be some time before other components are stacked onto the main vehicle. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has said that the agency aims to complete a wet dress rehearsal on the rocket before the end of the year. In the meantime, other SLS components and SRB segments will continue arriving at the VAB.

Each SRB stands about 177 feet (54 meters) tall. They're packed with polybutadiene acrylonitrile (PBAN), ammonium perchlorate, and aluminum powder, which bring their combined weight to 3.2 million pounds (1.45 million kg). Unlike liquid-fueled rocket engines, once the SRBs' solid propellants ignite, they cannot be turned off. Without them, the four RS-25 engines on SLS's core stage would not be powerful enough to lift the rocket off the launch pad.

Artemis III will be the second crewed mission of the Artemis program — NASA's next-generation push to return astronauts to the moon. And, while Artemis III itself won't actually fly to the moon, it will help progress the hardware and spacecraft technologies the space agency needs to ensure success on future missions to the lunar surface.

Like Artemis II, which flew four astronauts on a 10-day mission around the moon in April, the Artemis III astronauts will launch on SLS aboard the Orion spacecraft — but they won't fly beyond low Earth orbit this time. Instead, the four-person crew will spend about two weeks testing out rendezvous and docking procedures with prototypes for the two Artemis moon landers, both of which have been privately contracted by NASA.

Big move for @NASAArtemis III!The left-hand aft assembly solid rocket booster segment for NASA’s Space Launch System arrived at the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center. This segment is part of one of two boosters that will provide more than 75% of the rocket’s… pic.twitter.com/L7k4Qh3Jn9July 8, 2026

The space agency has partnered with SpaceX and Blue Origin for those vehicles, each of which is expected to launch once the Artemis III crew are on orbit. They'll first meet up with Blue Origin's lander, Blue Moon. After docking, the astronauts will have the opportunity to enter Blue Moon's crew cabin, where they will also have the chance to test parts of the Artemis extravehicular activity (EVA) suit designed for astronauts to wear on the lunar surface.

A rendezvous with SpaceX's Starship will follow Orion's stint with Blue Moon. SpaceX has indicated it will fly a boilerplate Starship V3 (Version 3) vehicle equipped with a docking adapter, but it will not have a crew cabin. V3 is SpaceX's newest version of Starship, which has been upgraded for high launch efficiency and capacity, but it will lack a fully developed life support system in time for the Artemis III launch next year.

If all goes according to plan and NASA is able to maintain its current mission timeline, the first moon landing of the Artemis program will take place on Artemis IV, scheduled to launch in late 2028.

Nearly 150 million people shared in the "moon joy" of Artemis II on NASA channels, setting a new agency record in the process.

NASA numbers indicate that 149.4 million people used agency platforms in March and April to follow the four astronauts of Artemis II as they prepped for their mission, lifted off aboard the Space Launch System rocket, flew by the moon and finally splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. The viewership figure includes the mission's 24/7 livestreams of mission activities and views from the Orion spacecraft.

"Artemis II's human‑spaceflight narrative, real‑time crew updates, and highly visual moments drew millions of new followers across platforms," the agency stated of the historic lunar flyby mission, which ran from April 1 to April 10.

On board were NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The quartet flew farther than any human before them while making the first journey to the moon since Apollo 17's landing in 1972.

Glover, Koch and Hansen became the first Black person, woman and non-American, respectively, to fly beyond low Earth orbit, and the crew engaged repeatedly in live events with politicians, journalists, students and other audiences from afar.

The live broadcast drew praise on social media for showing the work of the astronauts, including struggles with toilet venting, the crew's descriptions of the lunar surface and a moving group hug when the crew suggested naming a lunar crater after Wiseman's late wife, Carroll.

Launch (April 1)

NASA's official Artemis II launch webcast reached a peak of nearly 3.67 million simultaneous viewers. That's a record, surpassing other big launches in recent agency history, NASA stated, including that of the uncrewed Artemis I mission to lunar orbit in November 2022 or the James Webb Space Telescope in December 2021. (The agency did not disclose in the release how many views each event received.)

Roughly 16.6 million people watched the Artemis II launch live across agency platforms, with that number rising to 23.9 million views when taking into account those who tuned in after the fact. NASA's Spanish-language broadcast alone received a "landmark peak" of 458,366 simultaneous views, which has since risen to 2.8 million total views, according to the agency.

Lunar flyby (April 6)

NASA's lunar flyby broadcast alone "delivered one of the largest peak audiences ever recorded," according to the agency. As many as 1,471,069 people tuned in at the same time. Nearly 900,000 of those folks watched on YouTube, and about 190,000 viewers tuned in via X or Twitch.

Splashdown (April 10)

The dramatic reentry, splashdown and recovery of the four Artemis 2 astronauts generated a peak of 3,838,418 live viewers on agency platforms — nearly 5% higher than the liftoff's peak viewership.

NASA attributed the increase to interest in the "riskiest moments" that some global news outlets highlighted about the mission, "particularly Orion's re-entry and heat‑shield performance." (Unexpected issues with Artemis I's heat shield drew concerns from some when the agency flew the same design on Artemis II — although all turned out well, partly because NASA modified Artemis II's reentry trajectory.) Some news outlets, however, have said global interest came because the astronauts showed "worldly harmony" and shared their experiences with "heartfelt words."

Total, non-simultaneous live views of the splashdown on agency platforms clocked in at 24.1 million, which rises to 29.5 million when taking into account people who tuned in after the fact. But when bringing in a selection of the major broadcasters who covered the landing, NASA said that viewership rose to "hundreds of millions of potential viewers worldwide."

The agency focused on select streaming platforms in its analysis, including HBO Max, Netflix, Peacock and Amazon Prime Video. News networks were not included. The streaming platforms released subscriber numbers, but not mission viewership numbers. HBO Max had between 120 million and 150 million global subscribers during the mission, Netflix 325 million paid global subscribers (as Netflix allows some account sharing), Peacock between 36 million and 41 million U.S. subscribers, and Amazon Prime Video up to 275 million global subscribers, according to NASA.

Websites

NASA said a "major surge" came in agency website traffic because of Artemis II.

• Entire mission: NASA.gov received 125.1 million page views during the mission, which was a 150% increase over the 50 million who logged in during the entire month of March. A website showing Orion's orbit, called "Artemis II Mission in Real Time," or AROW, "surpassed" 11 million cumulative views since launch, although NASA did not say whether the AROW views continued to be counted after the mission concluded.
• Launch day (April 1): The mission's debut brought 17.6 million page views across all NASA sites, from 8.3 million individual visitors.
• Lunar flyby (April 6): More than 16.5 million page views came to NASA websites from 6.2 million individual visitors. As a part of the total page views, the NASA homepage got 2.3 million, while AROW showed 1.9 million.
• Splashdown (April 10): More than 6.1 million people logged on to NASA websites on splashdown day, generating 16 million page views. Of that figure, AROW alone generated 1 million page views.

Social media

NASA tracked 261 million individuals engaging with its social media accounts (which were not specified) between March 27 and April 13. Splashdown was the only milestone selected for individual analysis, with 35 million engagements shown on April 10.

"Public reaction to NASA's Artemis II mission remained largely steady across launch week, with neutral and positive posts dominating the online conversation. Neutral sentiment consistently led daily discussion, ranging from 47 to 60%, while positive reactions accounted for 30 to 42%, fueled by excitement over the crew's historic lunar journey, striking mission imagery, and renewed interest in deep space exploration," the agency stated of the engagement.

NASA also noted "strong amplification" on social media from "major news outlets, brands, and international partners." The Canadian Space Agency, working with other Canadian government departments and agencies, was the major international partner on Artemis II because of Hansen and backup CSA astronaut Jenni Gibbons (who also served as CAPCOM during lunar flyby), among other mission contributions. CSA hosted several live mission events in Canada, and had extensive social media engagement. The European Space Agency, which contributed the service module for Orion, also posted frequently during the mission.

NASA experienced "major social media growth" through Artemis II, with these figures below said to encompass the milestones between liftoff and splashdown. "Collectively, these gains highlight how Artemis II's human‑spaceflight narrative, real‑time crew updates, and highly visual moments drew millions of new followers across platforms," the agency stated.

• NASA's Instagram added 4.6 million followers. (The agency did not include the baseline number of followers during the mission in April, but as of July 7 it stands at 104 million).
• NASA's Artemis account on Instagram grew by 2 million, which was said to be "a 66 percent increase" while the mission was ongoing.
• The agency also noted "significant gains" on X, Facebook and YouTube. Numbers were not released for X. YouTube subscribers increased by 2 million during the mission in April; the baseline number was not disclosed, but as of July 7 numbers stand at 15 million. Facebook reached 1.7 million more people; as of July 7, the agency has 28 million followers on that platform.

Miscellaneous

NASA also highlighted a selection of its campaigns before and during the mission to engage the public's interest but released few metrics about how these contributed to overall viewership and engagement.

• The moon-mascot campaign: Thousands of people from 50 countries contributed ideas for a zero-gravity indicator for Artemis II, which ultimately ended up being "Rise" from eight-year-old Lucas Ye.
• Sending public names to the moon: Rise carried an SD card containing 5.6 million names submitted, from individuals around the world, to fly around the moon.
• Other partnerships: Artemis II was also highlighted on a Google Doodle on April 1, a Spotify playlist that featured the crew's wakeup songs, and on Merriam-Webster's Facebook page.

This week Ars hosted a live discussion with two space industry experts about the aftermath of the catastrophic explosion of the New Glenn rocket in late May.

Along with Ars Technica Space Editor Eric Berger; the director of research at Quilty Space, Caleb Henry; and the host of the Main Engine Cut Off podcast, Anthony Colangelo, spoke about various topics. Chief among them was the implications of this failure for NASA's attempt to land humans on the Moon for the Artemis IV mission. Blue Origin and SpaceX are both building landers to support this goal and the rockets to deliver them to the Moon.

During the conversation, Berger reported that the current Blue Origin "architecture" for a human mission would require four launches of new variant of the New Glenn rocket, known as 9x4, because it has nine first stage engines, and four upper stage engines. This is a more powerful version than the "7x2" variant that exploded a little more than a month ago. Blue Origin has not set a target date for the 9x4 rocket's debut, but some sources have indicated the company is targeting late 2027 or early 2028.

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A lot has changed since NASA last sent astronauts to the moon — including the attitudes of those space explorers.

That's the view of Victor Glover, the NASA astronaut who served as pilot on the Artemis 2 mission around the moon's far side this past April.

"When you look back on the Apollo missions, there was a lot more competition back in the office. Everybody wanted to be the first, and then everybody wanted to be the next," Glover told Angels Broadcast Television on June 12, shortly before he threw out the first pitch before a baseball game between the Los Angeles Angels and the Tampa Bay Rays.

"I think our office learned a lot from them," he added. "There are some good things about that. It makes you work really hard, but it also can create some unnecessary conflict. And so my office really wants to support everybody — wants you to be the guy that does it, and somebody just gets picked to do it, and that's OK."

Glover and his Artemis 2 crewmates — NASA's Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency — did indeed seem to forge a very strong bond during their training and their time in space.

For example, shortly before Artemis 2's April 1 launch, Glover, Koch and Hansen came up with a plan to name a crater on the moon after Wiseman's wife Carroll, who died of cancer in 2020.

"They said the three of them had talked, and they would like to do this," Wiseman said on April 6, the day Artemis 2 looped around the moon and got farther from Earth than any crewed mission ever had. "That was an emotional moment for me. And I just thought that was just a total treasure, that they had thought through this, and they had offered this."

Wiseman, Artemis 2's commander, said he broke down when Hansen radioed mission control with the naming request. In fact, all four astronauts were overcome with emotion at that moment.

"That was, I think, where the four of us were the most forged, the most bonded, and we came out of that really focused on that day ahead," Wiseman said.

The atmosphere was a bit different during the 1960s and early 1970s, as Glover noted; undercurrents of competition and rivalry reportedly ran through the Apollo crews.

For example, multiple people, including Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan, have said that Buzz Aldrin lobbied to be the first person to set foot on the moon, an honor that eventually went to Apollo 11 crewmate Neil Armstrong. (Aldrin has disputed this version of events, saying he didn't want to be the first-ever moonwalker.)

There are other big differences between Artemis and Apollo, of course. Apollo was designed to get people to the moon before the Soviet Union could do so, a goal that was regarded as a national security imperative because it would demonstrate American technological supremacy. As a result of this need for speed, Apollo did not build anything permanent on the moon, leaving behind only flags, footprints and defunct spacecraft.

Artemis, on the other hand, aims to establish a permanent and sustainable presence on Earth's nearest neighbor. If all goes to plan, NASA will build one or more moon bases near the lunar south pole, then use the skills and knowledge gained from this endeavor to get astronauts even farther afield — to Mars.

Jason Peterson’s responsibilities for NASA’s Artemis II mission went beyond his usual role as the range operations manager at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

For Peterson, working at NASA is a surreal full-circle moment.

“I grew up in DeLisle, Mississippi, right down the road from NASA,” said Peterson. “You would hear NASA testing, the windows would shake, and you knew they were out there. Not in a million years would I have ever dreamed I would work with NASA.”

His career journey took a few turns before reaching the space agency.

“I got out of school, welded, went to college and then to the Air Force. The path to NASA really started to develop from there,” said Peterson.

Peterson spent 24 years in the U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard, working in airfield and air-to-ground range operations, followed by a few years working as an aircraft dispatcher at Airbus Final Assembly Line.

Peterson credits his military experience with preparing him for the 12-to-16-hour workdays that helped bring the Artemis II test flight around the Moon and into view for audiences around the world.

He supported the team responsible for delivering video and communication feeds for the launch of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket with the Artemis II crew aboard the Orion spacecraft, and then splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

During the nearly 10-day mission, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen completed a record-setting lunar flyby, taking them 252,756 miles at their farthest distance from Earth.

Aboard the USS John P. Murtha, Peterson was the first on the ship to spot the capsule returning with the crew.

Peterson operated one of six cameras providing live coverage by using a high‑resolution, multi‑sensor system with thermal capabilities. Using the ship’s heading and Orion’s predicted trajectory, he located the capsule within minutes and began tracking it.

Orion entered Earth’s atmosphere at about 400,000 feet above the planet’s surface, traveling nearly 35 times the speed of sound and about 1,956 statute miles from its splashdown point off the coast of California. Peterson tracked Orion from the release of the small parachutes that first slow and steady the capsule, through the main parachutes opening, and all the way to splashdown.

“You are fully locked in, keeping it centered, in focus, and steady,” said Peterson.

Peterson’s focus on the mission began weeks earlier at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

In the days leading to launch, Peterson worked with the team running full systems checks, staging communications gear, and preparing drones and fixed‑wing camera assets. He helped configure and operate the systems that ensured live video flowed from the launch pad, the crowds, and surrounding air and ground platforms.

On April 1, the launch day of Artemis II, the team unloaded and set up high‑resolution sensors, connection terminals, routers, monitors, fiber lines, and drone equipment. They flew drones to capture crowd scenes and aerial views before liftoff.

As the SLS rocket launched, Peterson’s full attention was on positioning the drone and maintaining the shot.

“There is not much time to step back and take in the moment, as you are concentrating on precision,” said Peterson.

As the mission got underway, Peterson and the team packed up, returned to the facility, and downloaded the day’s footage.

The Artemis II crew were more than halfway to the Moon as Peterson arrived in San Diego on April 4. In the days leading to splashdown, the team loaded and installed high‑fidelity cameras and supporting equipment, all to help the world witness a historic milestone when the Artemis II crew returned to Earth on April 10.

Next up will be Artemis III. NASA will launch four astronauts from NASA Kennedy aboard the Orion spacecraft on the SLS rocket. Building on the successful Artemis II crewed test flight in April, Artemis III will pave the way for future surface missions, with experts like Peterson helping every step of the way.

La 347e réunion du Conseil de l'ESA s'est tenue dans un contexte particulier : celui d'un programme Artemis remanié par la Nasa, sans concertation avec ses partenaires européens. On attendait une réponse. Elle n'est pas venue. L'Europe spatiale a choisi la prudence, renvoyant les grands...

GOLDEN, Colorado – Here on Earth, centuries of accumulated engineering knowhow, hard-learned lessons, and societal evolution have shaped a robust framework of building standards that govern how we build and maintain buildings today.

But now, as humanity prepares to put in place a "sustained presence" on the moon, how do we guarantee the safety and integrity of structures built in an environment for which no such tradition exists?

At the 26th Space Resources Roundtable held June 2-5 on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines, one expert says what's needed is a lunar building code, the development of specific design criteria for the moon.

What's shaking?

Both NASA and China's space agency are planning to build habitats, landing pads, equipment shelters, and tall towers on the moon. But all that construction could be off to a shaky start, suggests Nerma Caluk, an engineer and lunar specialist for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, an architecture and structural engineering firm in San Francisco, California.

Caluk said there's a need to leverage terrestrial building experiences.

"On Earth, structural systems rely on strong gravitational acceleration to resist seismic lateral forces through both foundation friction and overturning stability. However, on the moon, the gravitational field strength is reduced to just one-sixth of Earth's surface gravity," Caluk told Space.com.

Because seismic inertial forces are governed purely by a structure's mass rather than its weight, the lateral demand on a structure remains fully active while its gravitational restoring capacity is substantially diminished, Caluk added.

"Low-profile surface structures risk translational sliding across poorly characterized regolith interfaces, while taller vertical structures face significant overturning vulnerability, as the moon provides only a fraction of the gravitational restoring moment available in a terrestrial seismic environment," said Caluk.

Here on Earth, structural engineers routinely design typical building systems to yield, crack, and sustain permanent inelastic deformation during a design-level seismic event.

They intentionally leverage "inelastic energy dissipation" as the primary mechanism for managing seismic demand, Caluk said. But this design philosophy is fundamentally incompatible with a crewed lunar environment, she said.

Take for example a hatch distortion or pressure seal misalignment. They constitute a mission-critical failure, and any structural breach risks catastrophic depressurization, said Caluk.

A group taking on the challenge of shaping guidelines on the building of lunar infrastructure is the aerospace division of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The group's technical committee on space engineering and construction has crafted "Infrastructure Engineering, Design, Analysis, and Construction (LIEDAC) guidelines" for the moon, Caluk said, to tackle seismic issues imposed by moonquakes.

The LIEDAC guidelines, Caluk said, characterize the unique lunar hazard environment, classify operational consequences through a risk-categorization hierarchy, and establish target performance objectives "so that safe commercial development can proceed on a defensible technical basis."

Inherent uncertainties

Caluk also outlined a "Response Spectrum Analysis" supported by NASA Small Business Technology Transfer funding that looked at the inherent uncertainties of the lunar subsurface.

The output of the analysis has developed criteria emphasizing the necessity of a local geotechnical site investigation for all structures, regardless of their seismic design category.

"These investigations are critical for identifying and mitigating risks such as seismic slope stability, seismically induced total and differential settlement, and other geotechnical hazards that may be triggered or amplified by moonquake ground motions," she reported here at the School of Mines gathering.

Moreover, the framework that Caluk and her associates have pulled together, acknowledges that lunar site conditions are not yet fully understood on a global scale.

Design practices

Not knowing ahead of time what lunar explorers may face is an unsure, shuddering proposition.

"Therefore, responsible design practices must account for this uncertainty through rigorous subsurface investigation whenever feasible," Caluk added. "By prioritizing localized data collection, engineers can ensure that structural foundations are robust enough to handle the unique physical properties of the lunar regolith and the specific seismic demands of the deployment site."

Caluk and her team members looked at the maximum considered moonquake, representing a more severe shaking level, to verify collapse prevention and ensure overall structural integrity under extreme lunar seismic events.

"NASA's deep institutional knowledge of human spaceflight operations and crewed mission safety," Caluk concluded, "provides the critical foundation upon which structural performance criteria for lunar infrastructure can now be formally established, with terrestrial engineering precedent offering a proven methodology for doing so even under evolving geotechnical and seismic data conditions."

NASA has provided more details about the revised approaches that Blue Origin and SpaceX are taking to accelerate work on Artemis lunar landers.

The post Revised Artemis lunar lander plans take shape appeared first on SpaceNews.

Astronauts selected for NASA’s Artemis missions are traveling to outer space in style, the American space agency has revealed.

On June 7, Axiom Space and fashion empire Prada showcased their Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment (LCVG), designed to be worn by astronauts inside the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit. 

The unveiling of the new garment by Prada and Axiom Space took place at Prada’s SoHo location in Manhattan just days before the announcement of the Artemis III crew, according to the New York Times fashion desk. With black-clad waiters circulating champagne and healthy juices through the Rem Koolhaas-designed venue, the intersection of fashion and space exploration was once again on full display.

 

“The future of space exploration will not be built by any one entity alone, and our partnership with Prada is proof of that,” said Dr. Jonathan Cirtain, Axiom Space CEO and President, in a statement.

“By bringing together the best in both aerospace engineering as well as luxury craftmanship and advanced product development, we have developed a garment that neither company could have created independently, and that is exactly the kind of cross-industry thinking that will define the next era of human spaceflight,” Cirtain added. 

Some might be surprised to learn this is not the first time NASA has collaborated with a fashion house. The first modern spacesuit was designed and crafted by a group of international designers at the Latex Corporation (ILC). In the 1960s, this company was best known for manufacturing bras and girdles.

Notably, a version of its A7L spacesuit was worn by Neil Armstrong during the Apollo 11 mission. Designers developed the A7L to protect astronauts from the harsh conditions of space and the lunar surface.

The suit was constructed using materials such as neoprene, Beta cloth—which helped protect astronauts from extreme temperatures—and aluminized Mylar. Overall, it was a highly complex, multilayered design.

The new LCVG collaboration draws on Prada’s expertise in knitting, craftsmanship, and advanced design. The resulting garment is a next-generation system developed using sophisticated 3D modeling techniques.

The suit is designed to maintain cooling and ventilation while remaining comfortable during spacewalks lasting up to eight hours. Thanks to its high-performance materials, it can also be worn repeatedly during long-duration missions.

“When we unveiled the AxEMU, we announced that the collaboration between Prada and Axiom Space would continue beyond that first milestone,” said Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada Group Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Sustainability, in a statement. 

“Today, we are proud to present a new achievement born from the unique combination of Axiom Space’s pioneering expertise and Prada’s know-how in design, patternmaking, and advanced materials, ahead of humanity’s return to the lunar surface,” Bertelli added.

In 2024, Axiom Space and Prada unveiled the AxEMU’s outer layer, designed to withstand the harsh conditions of the lunar South Pole. Their latest collaboration on the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment builds on that partnership, focusing on astronaut comfort, thermal regulation, and reliability inside the spacesuit.

“We look forward to continuing this collaboration with Axiom Space, pushing boundaries and exploring new frontiers together,” adds Bertelli.

The LCVG keeps astronauts cool during spacewalks by circulating chilled water through tubes woven into the garment, removing body heat and venting it through the spacesuit. It also delivers fresh oxygen and removes carbon dioxide, helping astronauts remain safe and comfortable in the harsh environment of space.

“Every minute astronauts spend outside their vehicle, the LCVG is working to keep them safe,” said Russell Ralston, Axiom Space Senior Vice President of Spacecraft Development.

“It manages their thermal environment, supports their breathing, and does it all while they’re pushing their bodies to the limit,” Ralson added. “The work we have done with Prada has taken that capability to a level we could not have achieved alone.”

Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.

NASA took an unconventional approach to informing the astronauts of Artemis 3 about their crew assignments.

From Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars, explore the world of human spaceflight with NASA each week on the official podcast of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Listen to in-depth conversations with the astronauts, scientists and engineers who make it possible.

On episode 426, the Artemis III astronauts discuss their backgrounds and training ahead of them to prepare for one of the most complex human spaceflight missions in history. This episode was recorded in June 4, 2026.

Transcript

Nilufar Ramji 

Houston We Have a Podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, episode 426: Meet Artemis III. I’m Nilufar Ramji, and I’ll be your host today. On this podcast, we bring in the experts: scientists, engineers, and astronauts, all to let you know what’s going on in the world of human space flight and more.

On the heels of NASA’s historic Artemis II mission, the agency is preparing to return Americans to the lunar surface and build the capabilities needed to stay there. While NASA continues to advance the systems needed to support a sustained human presence beyond Earth, we here at NASA Johnson are supporting the astronauts and mission teams who are training for the future of space flight.

The Artemis III mission will demonstrate the capabilities of lunar spacecraft in low Earth orbit. A crew of four astronauts will launch in the Orion spacecraft on top of the Space Launch System rocket to test rendezvous and docking capabilities between Orion and commercial human landing systems.

In this episode, we meet the crew of Artemis III, four explorers who will test the spacecraft, demonstrate capabilities, and eventually train crews who will go on to perform these maneuvers at the Moon.

Let’s go, for all humanity.

 

Nilufar Ramji

First up, we’ll be talking to the Commander of the mission and the Pilot.

The Commander of Artemis III is Randy “Komrade” Bresnik, a Marine Corps test pilot turned NASA astronaut. He’s logged 149 days in space across two missions, flown in both the space shuttle and Russian Soyuz, done five spacewalks totaling over 32 hours, and commanded the International Space Station on Expedition 53. With over 7000 flight hours in nearly 100 aircraft, including combat missions, as an F/A-18 pilot, he blends raw experience with exceptional leadership. A Citadel Military College math grad and University of Tennessee Aviation Systems masters, he’s now shaping Artemis missions at NASA. Before being selected as commander, he was serving as Assistant to the Chief of the Astronaut Office.

Next our Pilot, European Space Agency’s Luca Parmitano, an Italian Air Force test pilot who has spent 367 days in space over two long duration space station missions. He’s flown twice on the Russian Soyuz, conducted six spacewalks totaling 33 hours, and made history as the first Italian and third European to command at the International Space Station during Expedition 61. With over 2000 flight hours across more than 40 aircraft, he blends technical skill with leadership. A political science grad from the University of Naples, he also holds a master’s in experimental flight test engineering.

Let’s meet your Artemis III Commander and Pilot.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

Well, first off, congratulations on your assignments. This is incredibly exciting, but you have lots of work and training ahead. So, tell us a little bit, how you were told you were assigned to the mission, and what was it like when you found out?

 

Randy Bresnik

I had the fortunate opportunity this flight to have the chief of the astronaut office call a meeting where all the crew members were present, and that was really special for me, because my previous flights, it was me and the chief, and that was it, and my crew wasn’t, you know, who I was gonna be flying with was not there, and so that was just afterwards. I sat and was just really thankful for that, for everybody to find out about each other at the same time.

 

Luca Parmitano

So for me was slightly different, because I believe that my boss couldn’t quite, the way we say Italian, hold the nut in his mouth.

 

Nilufar Ramji

He had no poker face.

 

Luca Parmitano

And so he called me, and I was on a train, so a public space, and at the time I was responsible for the crew on orbit on the on the International Space Station with Expedition on 74 the role, so-called the increment lead, so when I saw the call, I immediately thought that it was going to be something concerning the crew on orbit. And so I answered the phone, and the boss told me, “Hey, Luca, I want you to know that we want you to be the pilot on the Artemis III mission.” And I was very much unprepared for that answer, and so it went through one ear, it didn’t register in my brain, came out the other ear, and I literally said, “Can you say that again?” and it told me the same words, and then it did register, but I was in a public environment, so I knew that I couldn’t say anything out loud, so I was literally speechless, which doesn’t happen very often, and then I was very, very honored when I, when I met the crew for the first time a couple of days later.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

So you all knew each other, but in this configuration as the Artemis III crew you had met, and how are you feeling right now?

 

Luca Parmitano

Well, Komrade has known me since I’ve been an astronaut, because I came into the core in 2010 So he has known me for my entire professional life as an astronaut. And for me, I can only hope to learn as much as I can from, from the crew, from the team, from my commander.

 

Randy Bresnik

And certainly you know we started off and have very little time together so far, but the majority of the time we’ve been together we’ve been laughing, and so that is a very good sign to me that you know with the stresses of the limited time or the you know complexity or the weight of the mission that being able to have that levity and comfort with each other will make the mission go very smooth.

 

Nilufar Ramji

That’s phenomenal. And I want to switch gears here and talk a little bit about before NASA. So you came to the agency, both of you came into space flight, came in as astronauts with several hundred, if not thousands of flight hours under your belt. So do you recall a moment in your early years, maybe when you were growing up, or as you were going through your education, where that interest in flight was sparked?

 

Randy Bresnik

Well, I certainly was always interested in flight, because our house was under the traffic pattern of the Santa Monica airport, where I grew up, and I looked at the window and just watched planes go around and listen to them. It’s just, it’s just fascinating to me. And so my father was a pilot, but it wasn’t, you know, because of what he did, it was just, it was innately fascinating to me. So I was super fortunate to be able to get a scholarship from the Marine Corps to be attend college, and that then took me to flight school, where you get the opportunity to fly a trainer aircraft, and then they decide what you go to fly, you know, whether it’s jets or helicopters, and so certainly a lot of people have your druthers, but it’s always the needs of the service. So I happened to be at the fortunate time where I did well enough in flight school, where I got selected to fly jets, and then when I finished up my jet training, I was fortunate enough to be able to get selected to be able to fly F-18s. And so you know doing that and being able to master that airplane, become a training officer, attend, you know, Top Gun in our weapons schools was awesome, because you’re the pinnacle of that tactical aviation, and then what next? And so you know, was able to apply for test pilot school, and go to test pilot school, and be able to do that cutting-edge development of stuff that hasn’t been done before, and that to me was just fascinating. Be able to bridge engineering and operations, knowing that I was bringing something to the fleet operators of that aircraft that was going to make things better, more survivable, you know, and be able to employ the weapon system better. And so, you know, doing that, the next, you know, thing that you know is an option is, you know, wow, can I really, you know, do that, have an opportunity to do that thing, and go to space? And in 2000 Doug Hurley got selected as an astronaut, and I’d known him well from our fleet days, and while we were at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station as Marine test pilots, and at that point it was like “if they like Chunky, maybe I’ve got a shot too,” you know. So and then the rest is history. The old school way to become at NASA is a test pilot.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

Right. What about you, Luca?

 

Luca Parmitano

Incredibly enough, my story is actually also connected to California in one way. I will get there in a second. I was, I was, and to the Marines, so this is serendipitous, but I was always interested in flight and space flight, as a kid. I watched airplanes, and I was curious about how they flew helicopters. Anything that flew really captured my attention, but like many things, it disappeared in my teenager years, where I thought about being a rock star, a professional athlete. There were so many things that I wanted to do. I had hair at the time, so being a rock star was an option nowadays, not so much. But in 1993 I got a scholarship to be an exchange student in the US, and I came to the US to California in Orange County, where my host starter was the schedule commander for a Marine squadron of F-18s.

 

Randy Bresnik 

Which one?

 

Luca Parmitano 

I don’t remember the number of the squadron, but it was El Toro.

 

Randy Bresnik

1993 I was flying F-18s out of El Toro.

 

Nilufar Ramji

What?! We’re finding this out right now.

 

Luca Parmitano

Serendipity is magic. So he reintroduced me to the idea of flying and a military flight, specifically. At the time, you know, as a teenager, I was like every teenager looking at myself and what my future was going to be, and I just felt enamored with the world of military aviation. So, I went back to Italy at the end of the year. I finished high school, and I applied for the Italian Air Force, which is a selection process.

I went in as a pilot, I started flying, and there is a second moment where Lieutenant Colonel Maurizio Cheli, an Italian astronaut, came to talk to us about this space flight on STS-100 and that was the moment when I thought that’s who I want to be. I was looking at the stage at this super humble pilot and astronaut, and I thought there is a path, and, and I just want to know what that is. And I learned that you had to be a fighter pilot, a test pilot, so I put every effort I could into becoming a fighter pilot. And after seven years as a fighter pilot, I went into, into that, I was selected to become a test pilot. I went to a test pilot school, and there, there was a call for astronauts from the European Space Agency. At the time, I was the youngest astronaut, the youngest test pilot in my squadron, and so I thought that that would be fantastic to apply, but probably not, not my chance, because all these other colleagues are more experienced, they’re older, the more experienced they have, more capabilities. So I probably should wait for the next time. And that was my, that was my idea that I was going to have another chance when I had more capabilities and more experience. Except that one morning my schedule commander asked me if, if I had applied for the selection, because he knew that I wanted to be an astronaut, that I was dreaming about that. And I told him, I don’t think that’s, I don’t think that’s my chance, I don’t think it’s the right time, I’m too young, I’m too inexperienced, and he told me, Well, if you don’t apply, you have 100% chance of not being selected.

 

Nilufar Ramji

Exactly.

 

Luca Parmitano

Yeah, and at least you have the experience, you’ll see what it’s about. So I felt authorized to do it. And so that night I brought my, my letter of intention. I applied for the selection, and a year later I was being called to Paris to be introduced as a, as a young astronaut.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

What a story. And now you are standing here on the heels of Artemis III. You talk about Randy, you had mentioned, you know, test pilots is the old school way to get in to be an astronaut. So let’s just to contextualize for our audience, you used to manually pilot the space shuttle. Now we have vehicles that are more autonomous. We’re going to Artemis III. It’s going to be manual piloting, because we have to demonstrate the docking capabilities of these human landing systems. So, it’s actually very serendipitous that we have test pilots that are going to be supporting Artemis III. You’ve flown your respective missions to the International Space Station, and those those skills will apply to your upcoming assignment. So, what are you most looking forward to with Artemis III?

 

Luca Parmitano

Honestly. I’m looking forward to whatever contribution I can give as a test pilot, as an experienced astronaut with a year of space time on the International Space Station, six space walks. That’s one part of it. The other part is that I’m really looking forward to learn and improve my capabilities, improve my experience and just get better at what I do, and hopefully keep giving my contribution to this incredible program.

 

Randy Bresnik

And so I’ve been in this Assistant to Chief Astronaut job for Exploration for almost eight years now, and so I’ve been working everything Exploration from Artemis I and its first flight to Artemis II and getting the crew on board and now being taking this role for Artemis III, just awesome to see how we are making those incremental steps and testing out our flight envelope and determining the system’s capabilities and testing as much as we can, so that when we have our next mission after this one, it has as much risk bought down and as much stuff proven for its capability that we can, and so I look forward to most is whatever we are able to put into this mission, getting it tested out and, and, and proven, flight proven operations figured out timelines, all that type of stuff, so that we can then go on to Artemis IV, which would hopefully be our moon landing with confidence, because of all the stuff we were able to prove out on our flight.

 

Nilufar Ramji

Yeah, and so many things that you can learn and train future crew for as well. So, lots of documentation and lots of heavily choreographed and dynamic events.

 

Randy Bresnik

And certainly you know the amount of training, Artemis II crew had three years to train. They were doing the, they were the first one, so we were figuring out training along the way, they came back and said, hey, we can, you know, make this training more efficient, and so there’s a massive reduction in the amount of hours, because they said we, if we train this way on these particular subjects, we’re gonna be able to train the crew to much less time. Which is exactly what we need, because our mission right now is on the books for in a year from now.

 

Nilufar Ramji

Yeah, so increasing efficiencies, but also this is exactly what test missions, test flights do for us, right? So, between the spacewalks both of y’all have conducted and the support that you’ve done from the ground, you are seasoned astronauts, and your upcoming assignments, as I mentioned, will involve a series of highly choreographed and dynamic events. So, how do you both prepare mentally and physically?

 

Randy Bresnik

Well, we are fortunate to have some flight test experience with crew in Orion, so that is massive for that foundation. We’ll be able to get those basics here pretty quick. It’s just in applying how that vehicle, you know, and the experience we gained on Artemis II with the prox operations demo, and that close flying we had with the ICPS, doing that to actual landers, you know, doing that to a Blue lander and a SpaceX Starship during that proximity, doing actual, you know, rendezvous and docking, being able to undock, fly around, that is going to be amazing. For instead of a, a spent second stage, like the ICPS was on the with Artemis II, they see actual lander spacecraft in that view and test these things out here in Earth orbit, so that we can make sure that when we get to lunar orbit, it’s not the first time we’re doing it.

 

Luca Parmitano

I’m sorry, I was salivating while you were talking. The fascination that I have for test flying comes from being able to go into an environment where we have an idea what’s going to happen, but then you have to be part of making it happen. And specifically for a mission like this one, it really is creating a stepping stone for the future. And it is such an honor to be able to make it better for the next guy, for the next mission to be able to contribute to any to a program so vast, but being at the early stages and doing something for the first time, it’s I would say that is the true nature of test flying, and so as a test pilot, I could not be more excited at the prospect of being part of it.

 

Nilufar Ramji

Now, let’s go into the preparation. Let’s talk about game day. What do you do on your game day? Do you have any rituals or routines that help your mindset to do something that’s literally out of this world? Is there, is there a song you listen to? Do you hug your kids a certain way? What do you do?

 

Luca Parmitano

So, since I’ve been a pilot, I have a, not a routine, but there are simple gestures that for me represent the beginning of the mission. If you’re a pilot, the mission is flying an airplane. For me, the moment in which I separated the rest of the world from what was going to happen was locking a canopy. When I locked the canopy on my aircraft, this is 25 years ago now, but it would lock everything else outside, and it was almost an immediate transformation for me. It was the moment that I became one with my aircraft, and now everything outside of this of the aircraft doesn’t exist any longer. It’s me, the mission, the guy on the other airplane, and what we’re going to do. It was that the physical click was almost a switch, and you can replicate that in any environment you are. You go out on a spacewalk, locking the helmet for me was that moment. You know, the click of the helmet, now everything is out, is outside, everything that’s outside of this, on the spacesuit is not important. It’s for later. I could have problems at work, I could have problems with with my family, I could have anything going on, but it stays outside of the head and outside of the spacesuit, outside of the spacecraft, outside of the airplane. And I’m sure that during the 100 of hours that we will spend training together, we will we will find what is that that switch that puts everything leaves everything outside and makes me focus on the on what’s happening in the moment.

 

Nilufar Ramji

I love that. Top that, Randy.

 

Randy Bresnik

Well, and it’s called compartmentalization. Okay, and you have to be able to do it so that things that when you’re in a high stress, high stakes, time sensitive environment, that you’re not distracted, and you’re totally focused with all your capabilities, physical and mental, in that one spot. And on launch day, you know, we’ll be getting up, having seen our spouses and kids for the last time, you know, in an intimate environment the day before, and that day you’ll get up, you might have a phone call with them, but then it’s into the routine of the breakfast, the suit up, and all of that. And you’re in your suit doing leak checks, it’s you’re, like it’s game day, but you walk out and you get that one little snippet back to reality, because you walk out and your family’s standing there as you get ready to go in the van and hit the launch pad, you don’t get to touch them, you don’t get to hug them. All you can do is stand across because you’re in quarantine and wave at them, blow them a kiss, you know, give them a give him a heart sign. And then you step on that bus and it’s all business, you know.

Luca mentioned going on a spacewalk in the helmet. I totally resonate with Brother Luca, because on my first flight, on my first spacewalk, my wife was in labor here in Houston with our daughter in the hospital, and once that helmet clicked down, there was going to be no more updates, no more anything. It had to be focused completely on that spacewalk. And on my first spacewalk, I haven’t experienced this. I don’t have any frame of reference. All I have is the training I had here on the ground, but I had to rely on that training and be at peace that me and my spacewalking teammate Mike Foreman were ready to go execute, and they, he needed to build the whole team needed to rely on me to be able to compartmentalize and turn that switch off until I got back inside. I thought, you know, during when I got back inside, we’re repressurizing the airlock, that when that helmet came off and the switch could be turned back on, they’d be saying, “Hey, Komrade, you’re a father, and unfortunately for my wife, she was still in labor. That’s a different story.

 

Nilufar Ramji

Poor thing!

 

Randy Bresnik

She did say “top that.

 

Nilufar Ramji

I’m sorry, I know. I’m just like, I want to talk about mental preparation, and-

 

Luca Parmitano 

I’m so happy that you said that!

 

Randy Bresnik 

That was really good. I was- there’s only one story that could have topped that, that was my wife’s in labor on the ground…

 

Nilufar Ramji

Okay, Artemis I tested the Space Launch System, and Orion Artemis II certified the vehicles as human rated. These test flights help support the foundational building blocks for humans to get closer to the moon. Now you have the task of testing another part of the mission, the commercially developed human landing systems. How does it feel to take us closer to being on the Moon again?

 

Randy Bresnik

The most important Artemis mission is the next one. Everything has to proceed, you know, with these steps. You can’t just go straight to the lunar surface without having done Artemis II, without having done Artemis III. And so, as Luca has said, what a privilege to be a part of that. And Orion, we’ve got one flight with crew on board, you know, are we able to do a longer mission and prove that out? Are we able to do things that we didn’t have time to do on our own? Start, we’ll expand the flight envelope or testing the heat shield, the new heat shield for the first time. And so there’s all these things that are still expanding the envelope of Orion, so that we can feel comfortable that that part risk has been brought down, and when we go to lunar surface, the new part is actually taking that human landing system and actually touching down on the surface.

 

Luca Parmitano

For anybody who hasn’t seen the HBO series, From the Earth to the Moon. Is one on one of the episodes, it’s about Apollo 9, one of my favorite episodes, because in that, in that event, what was happening is that there was a crew that was going to perform testing of the lunar lander, and they were going to be, they were not going to land on the moon, and then they told them there is, we’re going to anticipate another mission, and we’re going to send Apollo 8 around the moon and back, but because you, you were assigned first, we want to, we want to give it to you the opportunity to step into Apollo 8 instead of performing Apollo 9, and the crew gets together, and they ask them what you want to do, and they look at each other and they’re like, well, they might be going to the moon and back, but our mission is fun. Because they’re all test pilots and they were testing systems, and that’s what we will be doing. But that the Orion spacecraft that we’re going to fly is very different from the one that’s already flown, there’s there’s testing systems that that we’re going to have to do, and then we’ll be testing lunar landers and maneuvers, and at that mission is is so much fun.

And so I, the way I feel about it, I feel that it’s an incredible contribution, I feel that it’s important, and if you, if you think about grappling up a mountain, there is always somebody that needs to plant that nail, so that somebody can go and use that nail to be safe and go on, but exploration is a mountain without a summit, so our only hope is that we can just plant the nail well enough, so then the next person can go above and beyond, and then they can plant another nail, and the next crew can go up and and go higher and higher. So when Komrade said the next mission is the most important, I think I like to think that it’s always the next mission, not the one that’s coming after Artemis III, but the one that’s coming and coming and coming is always going to be the most important, and so the idea of contributing that way for me is the essence of what we do.

 

Nilufar Ramji

I love that. So, what I’ve heard from you two today is: one, you love the thrill, you have a great game day plan, and I couldn’t think of a better commander and pilot to be assigned for Artemis III, so congratulations again. We’ve gotten to, we’ve gotten to know you a little bit, so that’s been good, but I want our listeners to get to know you a little bit more. So are you ready for a rapid fire?

 

Randy Bresnik

Yes.

 

Nilufar Ramji

Okay, let’s go. Morning person or night owl?

 

Randy Bresnik

Morning.

 

Luca Parmitano

Morning person.

 

Nilufar Ramji

Me too. Not that I’m playing. You walk into your coffee shop. What’s your go-to order?

 

Luca Parmitano

Caffe macchiato.

 

Randy Bresnik

I don’t drink coffee.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

No caffeine at all. Tea, anything?

 

Randy Bresnik 

No tea, no coffee.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

Oh, okay. That’s good. Sweet or salty?

 

Luca Parmitano 

Salty.

 

Randy Bresnik 

Salty at night, sweet in the morning.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

Ah, nice. Phone call or text?

 

Luca Parmitano 

Nowadays, text.

 

Randy Bresnik

Phone call

 

Nilufar Ramji 

What kind of pet? If you, any of you, have one.

 

Luca Parmitano 

I love dogs. I was adopted by a cat.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

Oh, you did mention before we began recording. that’s your boss.

 

Luca Parmitano 

My boss, yes. Tati.

 

Randy Bresnik 

I have become a dog person.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

Become a dog. Okay. Book or movie?

 

Luca Parmitano 

Book.

 

Randy Bresnik 

Movie.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

Thank you for joining us.

 

Luca Parmitano 

Thank you for having us.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

Next up, our two Mission Specialists.

Francisco “Frank” Rubio is a U.S. Army Colonel, physician, and NASA astronaut. Rubio holds the American record for the longest single spaceflight: 371 days aboard the Space Station, having flown on Soyuz MS‑22 and 23 during Expeditions 67–69. A veteran UH‑60 Black Hawk pilot with over 1,100 flight hours and over 600 combat hours in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, Rubio later earned his MD and served as a flight surgeon before joining NASA’s 2017 astronaut class. On his mission he performed three spacewalks totaling 21 hours 24 minutes, and contributed to critical long-duration space medicine and station maintenance experiments.

Last but certainly not least, our fourth crewmember, Andre Douglas. He’s a U.S. Coast Guard Reserve Commander and versatile systems engineer from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics lab.  His Coast Guard time included search and rescue operations, ship salvage response, and drug interdiction missions. While with Hopkins, he worked space exploration design and test missions, nuclear ballistic missile defense, and multidomain autonomous systems development. This is his first flight assignment, but he’s no stranger to Artemis. Douglas was key to Artemis II serving as a backup crew member, fully trained and ready to step in if it was needed. He was also the astronaut support person on the closeout crew handling astronaut ingress and strap in before the Space Launch System and Orion launched earlier this year.

Let’s meet your Artemis III Mission Specialists.

Frank, Andre, welcome to the fun, and congratulations to both of you. You’re about to go into an intense training flow, but before we get there, tell us a little bit about how you were told you were assigned to the mission, and what was it like when you found out? How did you feel?

 

Andre Douglas 

Well, I think it was amazing, but we were all called into Maker’s office, that’s our chief, and he said, “Hey, come on in.” There was a few of us in person, and then there was a few online, and basically said, “Hey, you guys are assigned as a crew,” and it was nice to have people there and talk about it, and kind of give some hugs and some handshakes, and it was.. it was really nice, I would say, just very nice.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

Were you shocked, or did you anticipate that it was coming? Maybe Andre?

 

Andre Douglas 

I kind of anticipated that it might come, so I wasn’t too shocked, but I was still kind of like, oh, this is nice to have with the crew to get it all at once. So that was really, really nice.

 

Frank Rubio 

Yeah, it was awesome to find out with the crew that day. I had had a conversation with Scott a couple of weeks prior as some final pieces were being decided for several missions, and so to come together with these guys and see the crew eye to eye was pretty exciting, and knowing what we were going to participate in for the next year, year and a half is just a, it’s, it’s exciting, but really it’s humbling, right? Just to know that you’re lucky enough to be selected, it’s a huge honor. So, yeah, happy to be here.

 

Andre Douglas

Yeah.

 

Nilufar Ramji

And like your crew mates, you are both members of the military, so thank you so much for your service. Frank, as a pilot, was this always the dream for you? And Andre, you’re with, you were with the Coast Guard. What is it that drew you to serve with them? So, let’s start with you, Frank.

 

Frank Rubio 

Yeah, honestly, my dream was always to be a physician, working with a special operation. So, I was actually living my dream when I decided to apply for this job. And the reason was, you know, the more I looked into the mission, the team, it was something that I thought would fit me perfectly, and just so appealing to, you know, think that I could possibly be a person that could help explore space, right? I never once in a million years thought I’d be selected, but when you find something that you think might fit so perfectly, you got to give it a try, and so, yeah, so you know, ultimately, even though it wasn’t my dream, it has actually worked out to fit exactly the way I imagined.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

I love that.

 

Andre Douglas 

Yeah, and I think for me, for the Coast Guard, my parents served in the Coast Guard, so my dad was in the Coast Guard, and then my mom, she was in the Marine Corps, the Army, and the Air Force at different points. Yeah, at one point she was Air Force Cadet, and then she did the reserves for the army and taught nursing, and then she was in the Marine Corps, she got her scholarship with Penn State and went enlisted and everything, so she did all of that, and I remember as a kid she used to take me to all of her nursing courses across the country. And then you know growing up with my dad and having him go off to duty and just serve and not be there, like this concept of service was just kind of permeating throughout my, my life. And so for me, you know, when it comes to serving the Coast Guard, I thought, man, being in service, but for humanity, right, humanitarian service, the Coast Guard was what I chose. I thought about Air Force, thought about. All the other services, and they’re great too, but the Coast Guard was like, “Hey, let’s go save some lives. So that’s been kind of my calling to serve with them, and currently in the reserve, and did active duty before, but it blends well into NASA, right? It’s we’re serving humanity, we’re serving the public, and it makes it that much easier to do as we’re doing that job day to day, and it’s an honor to be here, just like Frank said, but the service makes a big part of it, you know, come easier, and just honored to be here. So-

 

Nilufar Ramji 

Both of you are so humble. And Frank, you are a space station veteran, and Andre, you trained alongside the Artemis II crew. So, how have these experiences informed what you’re about to get into, and tell me a little bit more of what you’re looking forward to?

 

Andre Douglas

Yeah, so I think you know being with Artemis II was very, very special, because you know, before I got assigned, I was actually getting very involved with the architecture, understanding the rovers, the suits, understanding the, you know, potential habitat, either orbiting or on the surface of the Moon, and understanding that this is a massive organization with a lot of different players. You know, as I was going through the astronaut candidate training program, I just focused on my T-38 you know, my flying, my diving, the little tactical things that would make me a good operator, but like having context of this is a big machine, and it’s going to take a lot of people to do hard things, and to see Artemis II go off and it to go well was awesome. But knowing behind the scenes all of that stuff that comes together, it’s impressive. So having that perspective coming into this crew and this mission, it helps to just have that context, so I can know where to focus, and you know, contribute the best that I can. Seeing how things at the end of the previous flow went, where I could have made changes and additions early, like I can do that now, and I can help the crew and everybody see certain things, and so I’m just happy to bring that to the table, and it’s just a nice vantage point to have in the past.

 

Frank Rubio 

Yeah, and I think Dre captured it perfectly. The number one thing is that we are part of an awesome team, right, and one of the coolest parts about our team is that we do help to inspire humanity. Both from outreach to engineering to exploring, right, and getting on the rocket and going to space, and ultimately space is awesome, right? And so we’re going to work our butts off for the next year and a half, and it’s going to be challenging, and then you get to get on a rocket and go to space, and it’s absolutely worth every little bit of work that you’re going to put into it. So a lot of work, a lot of sacrifice, but ultimately the payoff is both incredibly fun and amazing, and then a few minutes after that, it hits you that how privileged you are to be able to do it, and that we are helping to inspire future generations, and it’s pretty cool that you know, really, regardless of what mission you’re doing, it’s all of those things, but being part of a mission now that’s going to help set the foundation for a program that’s going to take our nation and humanity back to the Moon and then onto Mars, that feels, I think, a little bit extra special, just being part of that foundation for something, right, and something that’s bigger than ourselves. So, so, yeah, super excited about it.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

And the four of you as this this team making something happen that involves a series of dynamic events, but lots of lots of coordination and choreography you’re going to have to do as you prepare for Artemis III. How do you, how do you do this? How do you prepare both mentally and physically for a mission like this?

 

Andre Douglas

Yeah, I think that’s a really good question, and sometimes I think that’s different than what you’ve done in the past. I know for me it helps to do a lot of mental prep with respect to procedures, and you know, all the tasks that you’re going to do on the mission. So, some of the things that we do, which is translatable from what we did early in the astronaut candidate training program is something called Chair Fly, right? So I’m sitting in a chair right now, and I’m envisioning where am I going to be. I’m going to be either on Station, I’m going to be in Orion, and I’m going to think about, okay, I have to get my suit off. I have to work my cuffs on my gloves, and then I have to work my helmet. I have to figure out how to get my head out of the neck ring, and I’m going to talk through those motions. I’m going to actually physically move in that manner without the stuff, but I’m going to mentally and physically connect those actions in my mind, right? I’m going to chair fly. I’m going to do all on the chair. That goes with space walks out the door, that goes with other procedures on the display units. These are our DUs that we, we do in commanding Orion. I’m going to go to all these different menus in my mind, so that when I’m there in the moment, I’ve already done that mental prep, and it becomes more automatic as I’m executing, and it helps a lot. I think from an operational standpoint, that’s very helpful.

So that’s the mental prep, and the physical prep to me is about it’s not just. Working out, so you can get stronger and faster. It’s actually working out, so you understand your response, your physiological response. How can you control your breathing when you get super tired? How can you know, you know, how to control your heat load and things like that? Because it can get hot in Orion, it could get cold in Orion, all these different environments we might encounter based on our mission, which we’re still learning about, right? So, if you can control your body in terrestrial like conditions and understand and test bed a little bit, I think it’s a great way to know, like, no matter what happens, I know kind of where my limits and I can make decisions based on those. So, I think it’s important to definitely train the brain and the body as much as possible. But those are some methods that I would employ.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

What about you, Frank?

 

Frank Rubio

Yeah, I think ultimately it comes down to trust and confidence, right? Trust in the team that’s going to train us, and knowing that they have put in way more work than we ever will into developing all the possible scenarios that we could encounter, and training us over and over for those things, and that repetition builds confidence, right? And so when you do strap into that rocket, you think of all those people who’ve trained you, and it just gives you confidence that, like, we- you know, hopefully the mission will go perfectly, but when it does not, because it just never does go perfectly, we are ready and trained to deal with almost any contingency you can imagine.

 

Nilufar Ramji

So this segues perfectly into my next question. Now, what happens if things don’t go as planned? So, Frank, you had a bit of an extended work trip to the space station, to put it lightly, and Andre, you were training alongside Artemis II, as I mentioned, just in case. So, now, how have these experiences informed how you approached an unplanned or anomalous situation? Now, Frank, let’s start with you.

 

Frank Rubio

Yeah, so I think again, there’s a confidence in knowing that you are ready for everything you’ve trained for, right? You just put in a lot of time and effort, as Dre said, but then also part of our job is just to be ready to improvise and make things happen, right? And you do that in communication with the ground team, right? There’s an incredible team led by a flight director and all the flight control teams, and they’re ready to support and provide you as much information and data as you need, but ultimately, sometimes you just need to improvise and make something happen. I think that’s one thing that all of our backgrounds contribute to, is you just learn and are comfortable making the best out of a situation that you may not have ever thought of, or you know, couldn’t have imagined. But then you assess, you take store of what’s available, and then you make the most of it, and usually it turns out pretty well.

 

Andre Douglas

Yeah, I think those are really good words, Frank. I mean, it’s, it’s crazy, too. When we train, a lot of the public does not see all of the plan B’s and C’s and D’s and E’s, and so, in addition to the confidence in the reps that we get, we get reps in all of those scenarios, and it’s, it’s pretty awesome to have that, that breadth of experience. And one of the things I think that also helps, that we can do, as well as, you know, all of our trainers train us, like Frank said, they can also give us these guiding principles that can try to fit all the impossible scenarios that gives you that 80% solution, because we can’t get every scenario when we’re doing our sims right, but you know, if you know that a box on a system has data power cooling right, and you may not know the specifics, but you know that you have basic functions, and we have to reset it in Orion. We need to troubleshoot through those basic functions. Those are ways to kind of help bound the scenario, and I think that’s a decent method to help with preparing for the unknown.

But at the end of the day, like, the more that we practice and more that we trust the team, then the better off we’re going to be, but there are some little techniques that may help from like a first principle standpoint, and so especially like as we’re doing these things, we can easily talk in this room about how to solve the problems when we’re comfortable, we got oxygen, we’re hydrated, but when things start to degrade and it helps to fall back to the first principles, so we’re not overthinking and just completely off kilter there. But yeah, those are some things I think about when trying to make sure we prepare for that off nominal.

 

Nilufar Ramji

You two are exceptional humans, and given me lots of tips for myself here on the ground with the oxygen and the hydration. So, speaking of hydration, I wanted to switch gears and talk a little bit about meals, they bring us together, and food just is something that everyone loves. So, let’s talk about some of your favorite meals that you had, Frank, while you were in space, or that you, Andre, tried in the food lab. Is like, what are you guys going to eat?

 

Frank Rubio

You know what I learned is you’re going to eat whatever they give you.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

That sounds like what I tell my kids now! That’s dinner.

 

Frank Rubio 

You know, actually, it was a lesson that was reinforced, and something I already knew from the army, right? Like, unfortunately, the environment that you usually placed in doesn’t allow for gourmet meals,  and ultimately, you just have to have the energy you need to conduct a mission. But what, what being in space for that long reinforced is it’s not really the meal, it’s the people you’re sharing it with, right, and just ultimately you can be sharing some pretty untasty food, and it’s still an awesome experience, right, and you’re sharing stuff with each other, and you’re fellowshipping, and smiling and laughing, and ultimately that’s what the part that matters, and I’m pretty confident we’re going to do exactly that. So, not to minimize, you know, our Food Lab’s awesome, so they do provide us with some great food, but ultimately, again, it’s not going to be, you know, foodie gourmet food, right? But we’ll make the most of it, it’ll be awesome, and it’ll be good memories from, I think, those times around the table.

 

Nilufar Ramji

That’s true. The camaraderie.

 

Andre Douglas 

Really good words, Frank. I mean, somebody told me in our office that food is better shared. It just tastes better shared. There’s a psychological thing, you know, that that goes to it. So, I think that’s all there is to it. It’s gonna taste good when we’re together, you know, going through whatever we’re going through, the ups and the downs, and so I completely agree. As far as Food Lab goes, I think the one thing I tasted that I thought was pretty decent was the brisket. I think there was some brisket there, and I was like, “Oh, I’m in Texas, maybe I’m a true Texan now.” I don’t know, I wouldn’t have said that maybe like eight years ago, but I was like, “Oh, I’ll do the brisket.” But other than that, yeah, I think it’s all gonna taste pretty good.

 

Frank Rubio

Now I’m just gonna imagine Randy as our Commander, being like, “Here’s your food!”

 

Nilufar Ramji 

This is dinner.

 

Andre Douglas 

Good Luck!

 

Nilufar Ramji

The first meal you had when you came back from space, your gourmet meal, what was that, Frank?

 

Frank Rubio

You know, we have some awesome support personnel. One of those teams is the people who pick us up from when you land on a Soyuz from Baikonur, and so you have about a 24 hour travel back to Houston, and they had reached out and said, “Hey, what do you want your first meal to be?” And I was a little aggressive, thinking, “Oh, I feel great, and I want steak and salad.” And you know, the first leg of that flight from Kazakhstan to Scotland, I did not feel great. So I had to wait for the second leg from Scotland back to Houston, and actually felt great. I enjoyed a steak in the salad, and it was fantastic.

 

Andre Douglas

That’s a good idea. Yeah, that’s..

 

Frank Rubio

I wouldn’t recommend it right away, but eventually.

 

Andre Douglas

Yeah, see, we learned from our peers.. This is good.

 

Nilufar Ramji

Okay, now I did this with Luca and Randy, but I want everyone to get to know you, so I’m going to do some rapid fire questions. Are you ready?

 

Frank Rubio

Ready.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

Okay, let’s go. Morning person or night owl?

 

Andre Douglas 

Morning person.

 

Frank Rubio 

Also a morning person.

 

Nilufar Ramji

All four of you are morning people. This is gonna be great. Good team!

You’re going for a run. Are you listening to music, podcast, or alone with your thoughts?

 

Andre Douglas

Definitely music for me, and running.

 

Frank Rubio 

Alone with my thoughts.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

You know what the right answer would have been? You’re listening to Houston We Have a Podcast!

 

Frank Rubio 

Of course.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

Phone call or text?

 

Andre Douglas 

Phone call.

 

Frank Rubio 

Yeah, 1,000% phone call. I think texts are easy to misunderstand.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

Agree. You don’t get tone.

 

Frank Rubio 

And yeah, and as someone who is occasionally sarcastic… doesn’t come across.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

I respect that. What kind of pet, if any, do you have?

 

Andre Douglas

I don’t really have any true pets. The kids have a fish or two.

 

Nilufar Ramji

A fish or two. Okay.

 

Frank Rubio 

Yeah, you might have asked the wrong person on this one. So, I, we have a small little farm, and-

 

Nilufar Ramji 

I love that! Tell us about that!

 

Frank Rubio 

So I have two dogs, three cats, five ducks, and 17 chickens. Yeah, so we got rid of the goats and turkeys, but yeah, we had a little bit more before that.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

So egg prices didn’t affect you,

 

Frank Rubio

But that’s for another podcast. No, egg prices definitely do not affect us.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

Do you have a comfort movie or show?

 

Andre Douglas

So, man, my just favorite movie is Interstellar, and that sounds cliche, but I just really enjoyed it. Show-wise. I actually recently finished a series, it’s an anime series called Dr. Stone. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it, but it’s about this – it’s about the earth, and apparently everybody on earth turns to stone, and they don’t know why. But then there was this one character who, like, drank an energy drink right before it happened, and he counted for like 30,000 years or something, and then he broke out of the stone, and then he took his time breaking everybody else out of the stone using like bat feces fluid or something. And like it talks about, the thing that’s crazy is, it talks about all of the, all of the human-made inventions over time, and it’s like, how do you make an iPhone? How do you make a wheel, like all these things? It’s insane. So I thought that was, like, at first kind of crazy, and I started watching them, like, oh. It got me. It’s I finished it. And yeah, that was an interesting one. I did not expect, so I’ll leave it at that.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

Top that, Frank!

 

Frank Rubio

Bat feces fluid is a difficult one to…

 

Nilufar Ramji

I can’t stop laughing- I’m crying!

 

Andre Douglas 

I do what I can.

 

Frank Rubio

I was like, huh, how can I weave that into my story? And you just can’t.

 

Nilufar Ramji 

It’s its own thing.

 

Frank Rubio

Yeah. So I don’t watch a ton of TV, but when I do, I love college football. And so for four months out of the year, I’ll enjoy that on a Saturday. And then I actually don’t love the show myself, per se, because of who usually wins, but my kids love Survivor, and so that’s become a regular staple, just because they enjoy watching it. So, watching it with them. So, yeah,

 

Nilufar Ramji

Learn by watching or learn by doing.

 

Andre Douglas

Oh, by doing. I’m a learn by doer.

 

Frank Rubio 

That’s interesting, because I always associate the two things together, together, yeah. Usually, if I can watch it and then do it, that’s pretty ingrained.

 

Nilufar Ramji

I need someone to sit there and teach me as I’m doing it. I will perform a lot better, it’ll retain in my, my head more.

 

Frank Rubio

Yeah, yeah. But, like, you know, I can watch a YouTube video and pretty much feel like MacGyver, right? Like, anything in the world now, I can do. Yeah, I don’t know what people did before. I guess I probably hired a bunch of other people.

 

Nilufar Ramji

Well, we are limited on time. So, thank you guys so much for being here. We appreciate you being on the podcast. And once again, congratulations on Artemis III.

 

Frank Rubio 

Thank you.

 

Andre Douglas

Thank you.

 

Nilufar Ramji

Thanks for sticking around. I hope you’re as excited for Artemis III as I am!

You can check out the latest from around the agency at NASA.gov. And you can find out more about Artemis III at NASA by visiting nasa.gov/artemis.

Our full collection of episodes, and all the other wonderful NASA podcasts, can be found at nasa.gov/podcasts.

On social media we are on the NASA Johnson Space Center pages of Facebook, X, and Instagram. If you have any questions for us or suggestions for future episodes, email us at nasa-houstonpodcast@mail.nasa.gov.

This interview was recorded on June 4, 2026.

Our producer is Dane Turner. Audio Engineers are Will Flato and Daniel Tohill. And our social media is managed by Leah Cheshier and Kelcie Howren. Houston We Have a Podcast was created and is supervised by Gary Jordan. Special thanks to Anna Schneider for helping us plan and set up this interview. And of course, thanks again to our Artemis III crew, Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano, Frank Rubio, and Andre Douglas, for taking the time to come on the show.

Give us a rating and feedback on whatever platform you’re listening to us on, and tell us what you think of our podcast.

We’ll see you next week.

3… 2… 1… This is an official NASA podcast.

The post Meet Artemis III appeared first on NASA Science.

Listen to this audio excerpt from Elkin Norena, resident management officer, NASA’s Space Launch System Program:

NASA’s Elkin Norena has helped the agency launch more than a dozen space shuttle missions – that’s more than a dozen crews to low Earth orbit and more than a dozen historic missions. They were missions that helped build the International Space Station, that provided a final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, and that performed critical science experiments that improved life right here on Earth.

Today, he continues that work as the manager of the Resident Management Office for SLS at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, helping launch America’s rocket – the SLS (Space Launch System) – and the Orion spacecraft with its international quartet of astronauts  on the Artemis II mission to fly by the Moon and return home.

As resident manager, Norena provides onsite SLS support for NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems team that is responsible for preparing, stacking, testing, and launching SLS and Orion. He is also the eyes and ears for the SLS Program, providing an avenue of communications back to the program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

It is the continuation of a childhood dream to be part of space exploration.

“When I was a kid in New Jersey, I watched a space shuttle launch in class one day,” said Norena. “When I watched the power of launch and the brave astronauts going to explore, I knew I had to be a part of that one day. I wanted to become an astronaut.”

The dream to join the space program led the Colombia native to the University of Central Florida in Orlando, where he majored in computer engineering, just miles from the Space Coast and in view of space shuttle launches like the ones he once watched on TV.

Following college, he joined NASA contractor United Space Alliance at NASA Kennedy, and in 2008 he joined the NASA Kennedy team as a civil servant, working on the same spacecraft that inspired him to pursue the space program as a child.

“I started off in the Space Shuttle Program as an electrical engineer. Then I moved into the firing room for 17 different shuttle missions as a flight termination engineer. It was exciting to be part of all those missions and build the International Space Station,” Norena said.

Using those experiences, he became one of the original SLS team members. He was a part of the teams that successfully launched Artemis I and II and is now critical to the upcoming Artemis III mission.

Away from the launch pad, Norena’s hobbies orbit around his teenage daughters, participating in their activities. He also keeps a keen eye on space and is an avid astrophotographer.

“I love capturing the Milky Way! I’ve traveled to Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and all across the western United States,” he said. “A great spot that’s closer for me is Dry Tortugas National Park beyond Key West.”

No matter how he explores space, Norena believes Artemis II is more than just a mission.

“This is historic. I grew up watching the shuttle missions, learning about Apollo, and wanting to be part of those Moon missions. We built the space station. The space shuttle explored space and technology on many levels,” he said. “Now, it’s our turn with Artemis to get back to the Moon, and this time to stay there. I’m excited to be part of the generation that does that.”

The post I Am Artemis: Elkin Norena appeared first on NASA Science.

Listen to this audio excerpt from Elkin Norena, resident management officer, NASA’s Space Launch System Program:

NASA’s Elkin Norena has helped the agency launch more than a dozen space shuttle missions – that’s more than a dozen crews to low Earth orbit and more than a dozen historic missions. They were missions that helped build the International Space Station, that provided a final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, and that performed critical science experiments that improved life right here on Earth.

Today, he continues that work as the manager of the Resident Management Office for SLS at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, helping launch America’s rocket – the SLS (Space Launch System) – and the Orion spacecraft with its international quartet of astronauts  on the Artemis II mission to fly by the Moon and return home.

As resident manager, Norena provides onsite SLS support for NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems team that is responsible for preparing, stacking, testing, and launching SLS and Orion. He is also the eyes and ears for the SLS Program, providing an avenue of communications back to the program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

It is the continuation of a childhood dream to be part of space exploration.

“When I was a kid in New Jersey, I watched a space shuttle launch in class one day,” said Norena. “When I watched the power of launch and the brave astronauts going to explore, I knew I had to be a part of that one day. I wanted to become an astronaut.”

The dream to join the space program led the Colombia native to the University of Central Florida in Orlando, where he majored in computer engineering, just miles from the Space Coast and in view of space shuttle launches like the ones he once watched on TV.

Following college, he joined NASA contractor United Space Alliance at NASA Kennedy, and in 2008 he joined the NASA Kennedy team as a civil servant, working on the same spacecraft that inspired him to pursue the space program as a child.

“I started off in the Space Shuttle Program as an electrical engineer. Then I moved into the firing room for 17 different shuttle missions as a flight termination engineer. It was exciting to be part of all those missions and build the International Space Station,” Norena said.

Using those experiences, he became one of the original SLS team members. He was a part of the teams that successfully launched Artemis I and II and is now critical to the upcoming Artemis III mission.

Away from the launch pad, Norena’s hobbies orbit around his teenage daughters, participating in their activities. He also keeps a keen eye on space and is an avid astrophotographer.

“I love capturing the Milky Way! I’ve traveled to Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and all across the western United States,” he said. “A great spot that’s closer for me is Dry Tortugas National Park beyond Key West.”

No matter how he explores space, Norena believes Artemis II is more than just a mission.

“This is historic. I grew up watching the shuttle missions, learning about Apollo, and wanting to be part of those Moon missions. We built the space station. The space shuttle explored space and technology on many levels,” he said. “Now, it’s our turn with Artemis to get back to the Moon, and this time to stay there. I’m excited to be part of the generation that does that.”

NASA pushed its Deep Space Network beyond its limits during the Artemis I mission nearly four years ago. The global array of deep space communications antennas couldn't keep up with the routine demands of 40 robotic science missions and the extraordinary surge required by NASA's Orion space capsule as it flew around the Moon.

The experience in late 2022 reduced or delayed downlinks from several high-profile science missions, including the James Webb Space Telescope and Mars rovers, as the data-hungry Artemis I mission took priority on NASA's communications network. And that was before the first Artemis mission with astronauts onboard. When Artemis II launched April 1, NASA called upon the Deep Space Network (DSN) again to connect Mission Control to the Orion capsule as it soared more than a quarter of a million miles from Earth.

With a crew of four flying inside the spacecraft, the agency's appetite for data from Orion on Artemis II was even higher than it was on Artemis I. But at a little more than nine days, the Artemis II mission was shorter than the 25 days Artemis I spent in space, helping alleviate the communications overload. Artemis I also launched 10 small CubeSats into deep space, many of which required tracking and telecom services from the DSN. Artemis II carried fewer CubeSats.

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NASA pushed its Deep Space Network beyond its limits during the Artemis I mission nearly four years ago. The global array of deep space communications antennas couldn't keep up with the routine demands of 40 robotic science missions and the extraordinary surge required by NASA's Orion space capsule as it flew around the Moon.

The experience in late 2022 reduced or delayed downlinks from several high-profile science missions, including the James Webb Space Telescope and Mars rovers, as the data-hungry Artemis I mission took priority on NASA's communications network. And that was before the first Artemis mission with astronauts onboard. When Artemis II launched April 1, NASA called upon the Deep Space Network (DSN) again to connect Mission Control to the Orion capsule as it soared more than a quarter of a million miles from Earth.

With a crew of four flying inside the spacecraft, the agency's appetite for data from Orion on Artemis II was even higher than it was on Artemis I. But at a little more than nine days, the Artemis II mission was shorter than the 25 days Artemis I spent in space, helping alleviate the communications overload. Artemis I also launched 10 small CubeSats into deep space, many of which required tracking and telecom services from the DSN. Artemis II carried fewer CubeSats.

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