NASA to Reveal Four Astronauts for Artemis III on June 9

NASA will announce the four astronauts assigned to its Artemis III mission during a live event on June 9 at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The event marks a key milestone for the mission, which is scheduled to launch in mid-2027 and will test critical rendezvous and docking operations in Earth orbit between the Orion spacecraft and new commercial lunar landers.

The crew will be selected from NASA's existing astronaut corps, with the possibility of including an astronaut from an international partner agency. The mission represents the final crewed test flight for the integrated Artemis hardware, including the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion capsule. Its primary objective is to validate the procedures for linking Orion with the human landing systems being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin, named Starship and Blue Moon respectively. Agency officials noted the test could involve docking with one or both landers.

This orbital test adjusts the original plan for Artemis III to be a lunar landing. Following this mission, NASA aims for Artemis IV to return astronauts to the lunar surface near the south pole in late 2028. The agency recently awarded more than $1 billion...