As happened during the Apollo program, NASA must validate methods and systems by creating procedures for subsequent missions. For this reason he chose four astronauts with the most suitable experiences. Among them, our Luca Parmitano
Artemis 3 will be a fundamental mission for the human project to return to the Moon, this time to stay there. In the days that have just passed, the members of the crew were announced, obviously selected on the basis of the qualifications necessary to complete a dense program of experiments and checks intended to create operational standards for subsequent launches. Commander of Artemis 3 will be Randy Bresnik of NASA, while Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency will assume the role of pilot and the mission specialists, both from NASA, will be Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio. As always happens, the reserve component will be Bob Hines, former SpaceX pilot and also, like all the others, an astronaut with experience on the International Space Station. Since they were four men, there could be no shortage of controversy, however the head of NASA Jared Isaacman commented that Artemis 4 could probably also have an all-female crew, but that to do what is needed, the experience and specialization of the currently selected is what offers the best expectations. Bresnik is a former Shuttle and ISS astronaut, as well as a NASA manager; and how Parmitano was commander; Rubio had set the US record of 371 days in a single space mission and Douglas, the only one on his first mission, was the backup for Artemis 2. The experience required for the new mission is not only having completed others, but also having demonstrated the ability to tackle serious problems and find solutions. Parmitano survived water leaking into his spacesuit during an extravehicular activity in 2013, and Rubio’s six-month mission to the ISS became twice as long as planned (2022-23), after his first reentry was canceled due to a coolant leak. Artemis 3 will be a test mission: months before departure, scheduled for 2027 and lasting about a month, the astronauts, who are all military personnel with flight experience, will meet with those responsible for the SpaceX and Blue Origin lunar landers to prepare the vehicles and define the methods and procedures for carrying out the operations. Artemis III will be the second crewed mission of the entire program and will take place completely in low Earth orbit. It will involve testing docking between the Orion spacecraft and both astronaut landing vehicles provided by SpaceX and Blue Origin, which will be launched separately. In practice, Artemis 3 will be, in a modern key, very similar to the Apollo 9 mission of 57 years ago: on March 3, 1969, a rocket took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with commander James McDivitt, command module pilot David Scott and lunar module pilot Russell Schweickart on board. Over the next ten days the three performed the first complete test of an Apollo spacecraft, from the command and service module to the lunar module, starting with the Saturn V rocket. The lunar module “Spider” was successfully docked with the command module, and mission results showed that the units were ready for the trip to the Moon with Apollo 10. And even then the entire mission took place in low Earth orbit. NASA’s memory recalls that the crew also made two cable reports to Earth, showing the inside of the lunar module for the first time. Russell Schweickart tested a new Apollo spacesuit in action, the first to be equipped with its own life support system. Next year, 58 years later, with astronauts equipped with much more comfortable and safe suits, there will be alignment systems, automatic procedures and dozens of solutions designed for the Artemis program to be validated which will become standard from the fourth mission onwards.
