Artemis III Has a Crew

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Artemis III crew members (from left: Andre Douglas, Luca Parmitano, Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio). (NASA/Bill Stafford)

Earlier today NASA announced its new four-member crew for the next set of Artemis tests. The two week long Artemis III mission will test spacecraft in low Earth orbit in preparation for Artemis IV, which will entail an actual crewed mission to the surface of the Moon.

The new crew are three NASA astronauts and one European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut from Italy. NASA has a full profile of each crew member, but here are the basics:

NASA may have a crew, but does it have any partners that are really ready for a lunar landing?

To date, the only fully operational spacecraft is the Orion capsule, which will be sent aloft via the Space Launch System. Both SpaceX and Blue Origin plan to send up demonstration lunar landers that will not contain all of the necessary components for humans preparing for a Moon landing. This sounds a little dangerous given that the real reason for Artemis III is a dry-run in space. It sounds more like a dry-run for a dry-run, but NASA may not have time to complete a true test.

In additon to lunar lander delays, SpaceX is busy trying to make a fortune with its IPO, while Blue Origin is still licking its wounds after the recent explosion at Cape Canaveral.

These four astronauts may be the best news out of NASA for some time to come, so it may be best to raise a toast to the four of them and then simply hope for the best.

Space Stories: Nancy Roman Ahead of Schedule, ISS Leak Still a Problem, and US Grant Process Worries Space Scientists

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Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. (NASA)

Here are some recent space-related stories.

—Techspot: “NASA’s Roman Space Telescope is Launching August 30, Eight Months Ahead of Schedule“

NASA is planning to launch its Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on August 30, a full eight months ahead of schedule and even earlier than the space agency’s previous target of September. Engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, are in the process of packing the telescope for its journey to Kennedy Space Center in Florida later this month. Upon arrival, it’ll go to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to undergo a full post-travel inspection.

—Space News: “Astronauts Briefly Shelter in Dragon During ISS Leak Repair“

NASA instructed astronauts on the International Space Station to briefly shelter in a Dragon spacecraft June 5 as cosmonauts attempted to repair an air leak in a Russian module. Shortly after 9 a.m. Eastern, NASA Mission Control in Houston instructed the four members of Crew-12, the Crew Dragon mission that has been at the station since February, to shelter in that spacecraft. Joining them was NASA astronaut Chris Williams, who flew to the ISS last November on a Soyuz spacecraft.The move was prompted by a decision by Roscosmos to have cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev attempt to repair an air leak in a portion of the Zvezda service module known as PrK. That is a vestibule that links a docking port with the rest of the module and has had a long-running, but small, air leak.

—Sky & Telescope: “Proposed U.S. Grant Funding Rules Spark Worry, Backlash in Astronomy“

On Friday, May 29th, the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a 412-page document rewriting how federal grants should be issued and overseen across all agencies. The changes to the procedures, which were previously altered in 2024 to make the grants process clearer, were sweeping, touching on areas from international collaboration to academic publication costs. But the through line is made explicit: to align federal grant-making with “administration policies and priorities set by the President.” Immediately, it has sparked backlash from astronomers and planetary scientists, who see grave challenges for science if the rules come to fruition.

Note: Here is the podcast version of this post.

Space Quote: One Less Sentry Watching Mars

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the MAVEN spacecraft orbiting Mars. (NASA/Goddard/University of Colorado/Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics)

“The MAVEN mission has truly advanced our understanding of the Martian atmosphere and evolution. This dataset has had a tremendous impact on the field…Our science team is exceptionally proud of all of these amazing discoveries.”

–Comment by Shannon Curry, MAVEN’s principal investigator and a researcher at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, regarding the official end of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution’s (MAVEN) 11-year mission. NASA lost contact with the spacecraft last December. You can read more about MAVEN’s accomplishments over the years at this NASA site.

A Day in Astronomy: The First U.S. Spacewalk

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Image (Credit): NASA astronaut Ed White during the Gemini 4 mission on June 3, 1965. (NASA)

On this day in 1965, U.S astronaut Edward H. White became the first American to conduct a spacewalk during the Gemini 4 mission. His 23 minute mission lasted from his exit from the capsule over the Pacific to his return while over the Gulf of Mexico. He used a maneuvering gun to push himself away from the capsule as well as to push himself back.

At the end of his spacewalk, Ed White stated:

I’m coming back in… and it’s the saddest moment of my life.

Ed White later died in the launchpad explosion of Apollo 1 in 1967, along with astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom and Roger B. Chaffee.

An Apollo 1 crew memorial is located at Arlington National Cemetery (shown below) with the inscription, “Ad Astra per Aspera,” which in Latin means, “A rough road leads to the stars.”

Image (Credit): The Apollo 1 crew memorial at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. (Arlington National Cemetery)

Space Stories: A Massachusetts Meteor, The Red Dwarf Diet, and an Extra Ice Giant in Our Solar System

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Image (Credit): A exploding meteor off the coast of Massachusetts as captured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geostationary Lightning Mapper on May 30, 2026. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Here are some recent space-related stories.

—WCVB5 News: “Meteor That Rattled Massachusetts Was Bigger Than First Thought, NASA Says“

A meteor that created a sonic boom heard by thousands in Massachusetts and parts of the Northeast Saturday afternoon was larger than previously believed, NASA said Monday. Scientists now say the meteor was 5 feet in diameter, up from the initial thought of 3 feet, NASA said. “The meteor was about 5 feet (1.6 meters) in diameter with a mass of 5.6 metric tons and entered Earth’s atmosphere at roughly 42,000 mph,” NASA said Monday. Scientists believe it traveled through the atmosphere from northwest to southeast for 26 miles before breaking up at an altitude of 31 miles and producing a meteorite fall into Cape Cod Bay.

—Royal Astronomical Society: “Red Dwarf Stars Detected ‘Eating’ Earth-like Planets“

Astronomers have found some of the strongest evidence yet that stars can swallow their own planets. A new study, published in Monthly Notices of the Astronomical Society, supports the long-held belief that young stars are capable of ‘eating’ nearby worlds as planetary systems form. Researchers from Keele University and the University of Exeter studied thousands of stars and found evidence that six different red dwarfs – the smallest, coolest, and most common type of star in the universe – had engulfed Earth-like rocky planets.

—Phys.org: “One of Our Planets May Be Missing, And it Could Explain Why the Solar System Looks the Way it Does“

Our solar system has two ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, but there may have been a third. According to a new study published in the journal Icarus, this extra world might have triggered a violent planetary shuffling billions of years ago that could have disrupted some of Jupiter’s and Uranus’s moons and possibly led to the formation of others.

Note: Here is the podcast version of this post.