Anonymous4 days ago
NASA announced the four-member Artemis III crew on June 9, 2026 — Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano, Frank Rubio, and Andre Douglas — but the mission has been fundamentally redesigned from a lunar landing to an Earth-orbit docking test of SpaceX and Blue Origin landers, with the actual Moon landing pushed to Artemis IV in 2028 at the earliest. The $93 billion program faces continued schedule pressure from Starship refueling delays, Blue Origin's May 2026 launchpad explosion, and the cancellation of the Lunar Gateway, even as China advances toward its own crewed landing by 2030.