ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano joins NASA Artemis III mission as Europe's lunar partner

Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, a veteran of the International Space Station, has been selected by NASA to fly on the Artemis III mission, scheduled for launch in 2027. The mission will carry three NASA crew members and Parmitano aboard the Orion spacecraft to low Earth orbit, where they will dock with two lunar landers built by SpaceX and Blue Origin as a test of NASA's upcoming lunar landing program. Parmitano will become the first European astronaut to participate in an Artemis flight and the first Italian to travel to the Moon under the program.

In a Euronews interview, Parmitano emphasized Europe’s desire to be a strong partner to the United States in the return to the Moon, describing Italy as a “launch platform” and the European Space Agency as a “launch tower.” He highlighted the European identity forged by his generation and pledged to bring that determination to the mission. The Artemis III crew was publicly presented on 9 June at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.