NASA has announced details of the Artemis III mission, scheduled for 2027, which will be one of the most ambitious and complex test flights in the agency's history. The crew will consist of NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas, together with European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano, flying aboard the Orion spacecraft.

The mission aims to put key operations for future Moon landing missions to the test before astronauts return to the lunar surface. Artemis III will therefore serve as a proving ground for procedures, systems and manoeuvres that must be mastered within the agency's lunar exploration programme.

The Orion capsule will carry the crew into low Earth orbit as part of this testing phase. The mission forms part of the Artemis programme's schedule, which seeks to return humans to the Moon and lay the groundwork for long-term exploration of the satellite.