The announcement is the starting point for the initial work of the cosmonauts, and NASA has indicated that they will immediately begin their training. These works include tests with the systems of the Orion spacecraft – in which astronauts will travel to the Moon – and test routines for the lunar landing devices.

Mission commander and experienced cosmonaut with almost two decades of experience at NASA, thousands of flight hours and numerous missions under his belt.

Before becoming an astronaut, Randy Bresnik was part of the United States Marine Corps, where he was a test pilot and with which he carried out combat missions. He has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s degree in aviation systems, in addition to having graduated from the Air War College of the US Air Force in 2008.

Bresnik was selected by NASA in 2004, completing his astronaut candidate training two years later and in 2010 he began his preparation in the extreme environments program of the European Space Agency (ESA).

 

His first space flight took place in 2009 and since then he has accumulated 3,600 flight hours in spacecraft. If his military career is added, the leader of Artemis III has a total of 7,000 hours of experience in 95 types of aircraft.

Bresnik has worked as an engineer on Expedition 52 and was commander of Mission 53, which took place between July and December 2017. These jobs included hundreds of scientific experiments, spacewalks, photographs and a long orbital journey around the Earth.

The commander of Artemis III is currently assistant director in NASA’s Astronaut Office for Exploration, a position he has held since 2018. The US space agency maintains that in this position Bresnik is “fundamental to the development and testing of all vehicles and aspects” of the next manned mission to the Moon.

One of the two Artemis III specialists. Andre Douglas has a strongly technical profile and has master’s degrees in mechanical engineering, marine engineering and naval architecture and systems engineering. Added to the above is a doctorate in systems from George Washington University.

Before becoming a cosmonaut, Douglas had extensive service in the United States Coast Guard, where he was a naval architect, salvage engineer, damage control assistant and watch officer. After this he worked at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) at Johns Hopkins University.

During this last job, the engineer began working in aerospace engineering, collaborating with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and some projects that NASA carried out together with the APL of John Hopkins.

Douglas applied as an astronaut candidate in 2022 and was chosen by the US agency in 2024 as a reserve member for the Artemis II flight tests, a predecessor mission to the lunar trip that will take place next year.

He is the other specialist of the mission and a colonel of the US Army, his appointment being pleasantly received by the Latin American community, as his parents come from El Salvador, the country where his mother resides.

During his time in the military, Rubio gained extensive experience as a parachutist with 650 jumps, and was also an instructor in the subject. Rubio was a platoon leader, led an assault battalion and was also a company commander.