When Col. Frank Rubio floated out of a Soyuz capsule in Kazakhstan in September 2023 after a record-breaking 371 days aboard the International Space Station, he was gaunt, unable to walk without help, and had orbited Earth more than 5,900 times. He had not planned to be up there that long — a coolant leak in the original Soyuz kept him waiting nearly a year for a replacement vehicle. By the time he returned, he had traveled over 157 million miles, more than any American astronaut before him.
Now NASA has announced that Rubio will fly again. He has been named a crew member for Artemis III, a 2027 mission that will put four astronauts into low Earth orbit to conduct the most complex multi-launch rendezvous operation in spaceflight history — a critical dress rehearsal before humans set foot on the lunar south pole in 2028.
What Artemis III Actually Is
Artemis III is not a lunar landing. That distinction belongs to Artemis IV, currently targeted for 2028. What Artemis III will do is arguably harder to coordinate: it will place Orion and its four-person crew in low Earth orbit, then execute docking operations with test articles from both of NASA's commercial human landing system providers — Blue Origin and SpaceX — in rapid succession.
The sequence runs like this: Blue Origin's lander pathfinder launches first and waits in orbit. Orion, carried by SLS, launches next and rendezvouss with the Blue Origin test article, spending approximately two days docked — testing interfaces, software, propulsion, and communications. Orion then detaches, waits for SpaceX's Starship pathfinder to launch and approach, spends roughly a day docked with that vehicle running the same suite of checkouts, then undocks and returns home via Pacific Ocean splashdown. Total mission duration is approximately two weeks, determined in real time based on launch and rendezvous windows.
NASA calls it a test flight, but the engineering it demands is unprecedented. Three of the world's most powerful rockets launching in coordination, two commercial landers docking sequentially with the same crewed Orion spacecraft, all in low Earth orbit. Every piece of hardware that will eventually carry humans to the Moon has to prove itself here first. Artemis III is where the whole integrated stack either works or shows what needs fixing before the real landing attempt.
The Crew
Four astronauts have been named to the Artemis III prime crew, with Bob Hines — an Air Force colonel and Crew-4 veteran — serving as backup.
Randy Bresnik commands the mission. A retired Marine colonel, Bresnik has logged more than 7,000 hours in 95 types of aircraft and is a fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots. He flew aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-129 in 2009 and later served as commander of ISS Expedition 53. Since 2018 he has overseen Artemis spacecraft development as assistant to the chief of the Astronaut Office for exploration.
Luca Parmitano flies as pilot — the first ESA astronaut ever assigned to an Artemis mission. An Italian Air Force colonel and test pilot selected by ESA in 2009, Parmitano flew to the ISS in 2013 and again in 2019, during which he became the first Italian to command the station. He holds a master's in experimental flight test engineering and has logged more than 2,000 hours in 40 aircraft types. His assignment reflects Europe's central role in the Artemis program — ESA's European Service Module powers Orion on every mission.
Frank Rubio serves as mission specialist. A Florida native, Rubio graduated from West Point in 1998 and earned his medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in 2010. He has served in the Army for more than 28 years as an aviator, physician, and astronaut. His ISS record mission — extended by nearly six months when his Soyuz developed a coolant leak — gave NASA an unprecedented dataset on physiological adaptation past the one-year mark, directly relevant to planning long-duration deep space crews.
Andre Douglas is making his first spaceflight. A Virginia native, Douglas graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and earned four postgraduate degrees including a doctorate in systems engineering. During his Coast Guard service he conducted search and rescue and maritime salvage operations; he later worked at Johns Hopkins APL designing autonomous vehicles and space exploration systems. He served as backup and closeout crew for Artemis II earlier this year.
Why This Mission Matters
Artemis II, the first crewed Orion flight around the Moon, completed successfully in April. Artemis III now has to prove the docking hardware, the lander interfaces, and the multi-launch orchestration work before any of it is trusted on a trip to the lunar surface. If Artemis III surfaces a critical flaw in the Blue Origin or SpaceX docking systems, it surfaces it 250 miles above Earth where a fix is possible. If that same flaw appeared during Artemis IV's approach to the lunar south pole, the options narrow considerably.
For Rubio, the mission is a return to operational spaceflight on a program he watched develop throughout his extended ISS stay. He broke one American record inadvertently. Artemis III gives him the chance to help build the foundation for the next one deliberately.
