NASA's Artemis 3 mission will practice rendezvous and docking operations in Earth orbit, paving the way for a planned moon landing on Artemis 4. (Image credit: NASA) Share this article 0 Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter The next big Artemis announcement is less than two weeks away.
On June 9, NASA will reveal the four-person Artemis 3 crew and provide a progress update about the mission, agency officials said on Tuesday evening (May 26).
The crew reveal will take place at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, during an event that starts at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT). You can watch it live here Space.com when the time comes.
Artemis 3 was originally supposed to be the first landing mission of the Artemis program, which aims to establish a lasting human presence on the moon over the next decade or so.
In late February, however, NASA chief Jared Isaacman announced a big change to the Artemis architecture: Artemis 3 will test rendezvous and docking operations in Earth orbit between NASA's Orion crew capsule and one or both of the program's crewed lunar landers — SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's Blue Moon.
Artemis 3 is scheduled to launch in mid-2027, so we'll learn about the crew about a year before liftoff if all goes to plan. For perspective, NASA announced the four astronauts of the Artemis 2 around-the-moon mission, which launched on April 1 of this year, in April 2023.
If all goes well with Artemis 3 and other developments, Artemis 4 will put astronauts down near the lunar south pole in late 2028. It's unclear at this point whether Starship or Blue Moon will fly on that mission.
NASA gave us some other Artemis news on Tuesday. The agency announced more than $1 billion in contracts for rovers, lunar landers and other vehicles that will help build out a planned base near the moon's south pole.
NASA also told us that it wants that base to cover hundreds of square miles.
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Mike WallSpaceflight and Tech EditorMichael Wall is the Spaceflight and Tech Editor for Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers human and robotic spaceflight, military space, and exoplanets, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.
