Watch Live: NASA names 4 astronauts for next Artemis mission

NASA is introducing the four astronauts of the next Artemis moon program mission on Tuesday. The announcement at the Johnson Space Center in Houston kicks off a year or more of mission-specific training for the Artemis III crew.

They are expected to launch into Earth orbit next year to test rendezvous and docking procedures with moon landers being built by SpaceX and Blue Origin — a critical milestone before the U.S. can send astronauts back to the moon for landing in 2028.

What the Artemis III mission will do

The Artemis III crew will need to master the same operations that will be carried out in lunar orbit on a subsequent flight before America's first moon landing in nearly 55 years.

Launching in an Orion capsule atop NASA's Space Launch System rocket, the Artemis III crew will carry out a mission similar to NASA's Apollo 9 flight in March 1969 when three astronauts tested the spindly lunar excursion module in Earth orbit. That flight came after a successful lunar orbit mission, Apollo 8, at the end of 1968.

Then the Apollo 10 flight tested the lunar module in orbit around the moon before Apollo 11 finally made the first moon landing in the Sea of Tranquility in July 1969.

The Artemis program's version of Apollo 8, sending Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a flight around the moon, was successfully completed in April.

NASA's plans for a moon landing

As of now, Artemis III is the only test flight NASA is planning before making a landing attempt in 2028 with whichever lunar lander is available. By that point, one or both companies will have had to complete a successful unpiloted moon landing.

The Artemis III crew announcement comes as Blue Origin continues to recover from a catastrophic launch pad explosion May 28 that destroyed a New Glenn rocket like the one that will be needed to carry the company's Blue Moon Mark II lander into Earth orbit next year. The company's only launch pad, located at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, suffered major damage.

The Jeff Bezos-owned company says it expects to return to flight before the end of the year, but the mishap threw a wrench into the New Glenn launch schedule, delaying flights of the Blue Moon Mark I, an uncrewed lunar cargo ship, that was expected to have helped pave the way for the larger, more capable piloted version.

Whether the New Glenn rocket and pad 36 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station will be back in operation in time to launch a flight-ready Mark II lander in time for Artemis III remains to be seen.

SpaceX has had its own problems perfecting the huge Super Heavy-Starship rocket needed to launch that company's lander. It's not yet known when the Elon Musk-owned company will have its lander ready for an orbital flight test, but NASA is pressing ahead with plans for the Artemis III mission regardless.

If only one lander is available, the mission is expected to proceed. If neither lander is ready, NASA likely will come up with an alternate mission scenario to keep the program moving.

The Artemis program is intended to get astronauts back to the moon by the end of 2028. NASA wants to win a self-declared space race with China, which is working to send its own "taikonauts" to the moon by the end of the decade.

Even though NASA sent 12 astronauts to the moon's surface between 1969 and the end of 1972, winning the Cold War space race with the former Soviet Union, the agency wants to establish a near permanent presence on the moon with the Artemis program, cementing its position as the world leader in space travel, research and technology.

NASA is planning to launch a series of robotic landers and lunar satellites along with the Artemis IV and V missions followed by two astronaut landings per year thereafter. That will set the stage for construction of a moon base near the lunar south pole beginning in the 2029-2030 timeframe.

The south polar region is an attractive target because of permanently shadowed, ultra-cold craters expected to harbor comet-borne ice deposits, providing an in situ source of water, air and rocket fuel. With habitats in place, along with solar and nuclear power stations, rotating astronaut crews could live and work on the moon for long durations much like space station fliers have done in Earth orbit for the past quarter century.

But there are multiple threats to the Artemis schedule, including the readiness of the required rockets and landers that could push Artemis III into 2028 and landing missions even further. Whether any additional test flights might be needed between the Artemis III mission and a moon landing remains to be seen.