NASA has announced the four astronauts assigned to the Artemis III mission, the next major step in the agency’s return-to-the-Moon efforts. Multiple outlets report that the crew will launch next year and first operate in low Earth orbit, where they will perform rendezvous and docking procedures with commercial lunar landers. The landers involved are being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin, which are building systems intended to support future crewed lunar surface missions.

Several reports describe Artemis III as part of a broader technology-testing campaign. The crew’s work in Earth orbit is intended to validate key mission operations, including meeting spacecraft in orbit and docking with the lander hardware prior to a planned Moon landing later in the decade. Coverage also notes that the announcement comes about two months after Artemis II, NASA’s recent crewed lunar flyby, completed a record-setting trip around the Moon and surpassed the distance milestone previously set during Apollo 13.

Overall, the articles present the astronaut naming as a transitional phase: crews test and integrate with commercial lander systems before Artemis III’s eventual lunar landing objective.