The next big Artemis announcement is just hours away.
In Houston today (June 9), NASA will reveal the four-person Artemis 3 crew and provide a progress update about the mission, agency officials said on Tuesday evening (May 26).
The crew reveal will take place at NASA's Johnson Space Center, during an event that starts at 11:30 a.m. EDT (1530 GMT), about 30 minutes later than previously announced. You can watch it live here Space.com when the time comes, as well as directly on the Space.com YouTube channel.
Artemis 3 was originally supposed to be the first landing mission of the Artemis program, which aims to establish a lasting human presence on the moon over the next decade or so.
In late February, however, NASA chief Jared Isaacman announced a big change to the Artemis architecture: Artemis 3 will test rendezvous and docking operations in Earth orbit between NASA's Orion crew capsule and one or both of the program's crewed lunar landers — SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's Blue Moon.
"The mission will test critical rendezvous and docking capabilities between Orion and commercial human landing systems needed to deliver astronauts to the lunar surface," NASA wrote in a statement. "Building on the successful Artemis II crewed test flight in April, Artemis III will pave the way for future surface missions."
Artemis 3 is scheduled to launch in mid-2027, so we'll learn about the crew about a year before liftoff if all goes to plan. For perspective, NASA announced the four astronauts of the Artemis 2 around-the-moon mission, which launched on April 1 of this year, in April 2023.
If all goes well with Artemis 3 and other developments, Artemis 4 will put astronauts down near the lunar south pole in late 2028. It's unclear at this point whether Starship or Blue Moon will fly on that mission.
NASA gave us some other Artemis news on Tuesday. The agency announced more than $1 billion in contracts for rovers, lunar landers and other vehicles that will help build out a planned base near the moon's south pole.
NASA also told us that it wants that base to cover hundreds of square miles.
Editor's note: This story was updated to reflect the new time for NASA's Artemis 3 mission update and crew reveal.
