Nasa has named the crew of its next Artemis mission, which it promised would be an “extraordinary demonstration of what is possible”. Artemis is the ambitious American-led effort to the return humans to the lunar surface by 2028.

However, the Artemis III mission will not travel to the Moon. Instead, the Orion spacecraft will stay in low Earth orbit and aim to dock with lunar landing vehicles launched separately by one or two space companies.

Nasa astronauts Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas and Italian European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano will carry out the mission in late 2027.

There are two potential landers that could fly on their separate mission to then rendezvous with the Orion spacecraft; one made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and the other by Jeff Bezos’ firm Blue Origin. They will carry astronauts down to the Moon’s surface on subsequent missions.

However, the timetable for Artemis III and the first mission to return astronauts to the lunar surface (Artemis IV) has been thrown into doubt by the recent explosion of a New Glenn rocket. This rocket is intended to launch Blue Origin’s lander, called Blue Moon.

The blast could add significant delay to the Artemis schedule and there is speculation that it could even put the US out of contention to reach the Moon before China, which is planning its own Moon landing mission for 2030.

On May 28, 2026, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, which is able to carry........

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