Retired Marine colonel to lead NASA’s Artemis III mission

After Randy Bresnik flew combat missions in Kuwait as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, he contemplated his next career move.

He recalled a friend who became an astronaut. Knowing someone who made that jump gave Bresnik a bit of confidence. He applied to NASA in 2004, fully understanding the chances of his selection were slim.

“I thought, ‘Wow! If they’ll select him, maybe they’ll select me,’” Bresnik told the Army in 2018. “The odds are so small. There were guys applying for the 2004 class that were, I thought, more experienced, but you never know what NASA’s looking for. You go with who you are [and] what you’ve done.”

NASA called Bresnik’s name, and for the past two-plus decades, his path in the space agency trended upward. On Tuesday, June 9, 2026, NASA announced Bresnik, a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel, will command the Artemis III mission next year.

Pilot Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and NASA astronauts Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas, both mission specialists, will join Bresnik on Artemis III. Air Force Col. Bob Hines will be the backup crew member.

Success of Artemis II

The Artemis III crew will follow on the heels of what Artemis II accomplished. In April, retired Navy Capt. Reid Wiseman commanded a mission that also included pilot Victor Glover (a captain in the Navy), and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. During its 10-day journey, Artemis II went to the other side of the moon and set a record for the farthest distance traveled from Earth.

“Today we take another bold step in humanity’s return to the Moon, building on the extraordinary foundation laid by the Artemis II astronauts,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a NASA news release. “Their achievements reignited global excitement for exploration.”

The Artemis III astronauts are tentatively expected to be in space for about two weeks.

Their mission will begin when they board an Orion spacecraft at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A rocket will propel them to low Earth orbit, where they will rendezvous with Blue Origin’s lander pathfinder. They will devote two days or so together for tests and demonstrations, including the four astronauts going into the lander, NASA disclosed.

After the two spacecraft detach, Orion will next hook up with SpaceX’s Starship pathfinder for a day of testing. Then the Orion capsule will return to Earth. Like what happened with Artemis II, the Artemis III astronauts will come down in the Pacific Ocean. Navy and NASA personnel will retrieve them there.

While Elon Musk owns SpaceX, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin.

More About the Crew

Artemis III will represent Bresnik’s third time in space. Bresnik, 58, first traveled to space aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2009. Eight years later, he went to the International Space Station.

Bresnik joined NASA in 2004.

Rubio, 50, is no stranger to space, either. On his previous trip, the Army colonel set a record for the longest, uninterrupted spaceflight for an American astronaut. Rubio spent 371 consecutive days at the ISS in 2022 and 2023.

An astronaut since 2021, Douglas, 40, will head into space for the first time when Artemis III launches. He is a Coast Guard Academy graduate and only the third Coast Guardsman ever to become an astronaut. Bruce Melnick and Daniel Burbank are the others.

With Tuesday’s announcement, the work is just starting for Bresnik, Parmitano, Rubio, and Douglas.

“The Artemis III astronauts… are ushering in a new Golden Age of exploration carrying the hopes and dreams of the next generation just as the Apollo astronauts did for so many of us,” Isaacman proclaimed.

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