NASA announced the crew of Artemis III mission which will include, NASA astronaut and commander Randy Bresnik, pilot Luca Parmitano of ESA, and NASA astronauts Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas as lander specialists.

Axar.az informs, citing the European Space Agency, NASA astronaut Bob Hines was also assigned as a backup crew member.

The crew will now begin a rigorous training schedule to learn the Orion spacecraft systems, as well as the operations of the human landing systems, to prepare for an ambitious series of demonstrations ahead of a Moon landing mission.

Luca Parmitano is an ESA astronaut from Italy who has spent 366 days in space across two long-duration missions to the International Space Station, Volare and Beyond.

During these missions, he supported hundreds of experiments, performed six spacewalks totalling more than 30 hours and became commander the Station. Since returning to Earth, he has served as ESA’s liaison at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, acting as CAPCOM and training ESA astronauts for spacewalks and robotic operations.

Last year, Luca participated in NASA’s Underway Recovery Test 12 off the coast of California to simulate the splashdown and recovery of Artemis astronauts from a full-scale mock-up of the Orion spacecraft.

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