“We’re not going to launch this mission until we feel like the objectives that are outlined are sufficient to bring down the risk for a follow-on landing to the Moon itself.” arstechnica.com/space/2026/0…

Congrats Artemis III crew!

“Days like this don’t come often, when history is not something we remember, but that we make” - says ESA DG @AschbacherJosef

NASA's Jeremy Parsons outlines the current plan for Artemis 3: - Blue Origin's lander launches into orbit - Orion launches, docked with lander for two days - Orion undocks, await Starship launch - Orion docks with Starship for a day, then returns.

From Italy Luca Parmitano will be the pilot on Artemis III

Meet your new #ArtemisIII crew: Commander Randy Bresnik, Pilot Luca Parmitano from @ESA, and Mission Specialists Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas - Ad Astra!

True to its name, Never Tell Me The Odds has safely returned to Rocket Park.

.@ESA will be simulcasting the Artemis III crew announcement tomorrow. Interesting.

UPDATE: The Artemis III event will start at 11:30am ET (1530 UTC) on Tuesday, June 9!

I had some good success with guessing the Artemis II crew, knowing that Reid Wiseman had just stepped down as head of astronaut office, Canada was sending an astronaut and the wish to not have the crew going around the moon be all white dudes, that left a small number of highly qualified options. Artemis III is to LEO, it's a different vibe. I see ESA is streaming the event, so that's a clue an ESA astronaut might be involved. ESA previous said that a german astronaut would be the first to fly to the moon but with this being LEO, and a mission involving testing hardware the ESA jet pilots have an edge so I'd guess Luca Parmitano or Samantha Christoforetti. From NASA, Andre Douglas was a backup for Artemis II and seems like an obvious choice. Raja Chari has been working on astronaut development for HLS since his flight in 2022, he seems like someone already well positioned for this flight. Jasmin Moghbeli has also been involved in HLS, not as much as Raja though. Nicole Mann also has a lot of relevant experience, working with exploration systems development. There's definintly some other great choices, Woody Hoburg was on the Orion heat shield review team and Artemis III has another new heat shield. And I won't be surprised if there's choices not on this list.

Britain's lost Mars lander is getting its place in history. 📜 Commemorative red plaques are being unveiled across the UK to celebrate Beagle 2, which landed on Mars on Christmas Day 2003 to search for signs of life. 🦠 🔴 Find out more 👉 orlo.uk/9yQAx

BREAKING: Tsunami alert and at least four dead after 7.8-magnitude quake hits the Philippines news.sky.com/story/tsunami-a…

Roscosmos has paused Friday’s structural repair efforts inside the Zvezda service module transfer tunnel, known as PrK, as more measurements and data is assessed. Given this development, NASA has instructed the crew members inside the Dragon spacecraft to end the safe haven procedures and return to planned operations aboard the International Space Station. We look forward to working with Roscosmos on a collaborative approach to address the leaks.

The Zvezda service module transfer tunnel, known as PrK, has suffered from cracks and leaks for some time, and has been mitigated by Roscosmos as much as possible to date. The cracks have always been a concern that NASA watches very closely. NASA and Roscosmos have been working to determine the root cause of the cracks, and Roscosmos manages the issue through operational mitigation measures and periodic partial-repair efforts.

Following new leaks, Roscosmos has elected to proceed with a more extensive repair operation on Friday, June 5. Out of an abundance of caution, NASA has directed all four of the agency's SpaceX Crew-12 members and NASA astronaut Chris Williams to assume an elevated safety posture in the Dragon spacecraft while the repair is underway.

We continue to work with our Russian counterparts, along with the rest of the international community that supports the space station, to arrive at a more permanent resolution.

Seeing this morning that John McFall @iamfivetoes has been nominated to fly aboard the first @vast Haven-1 mission, possibly as early as 2027. Fantastic way to cap off years of hard work and completing @esa astronaut training. Hoping there's a seat for @astro_meganne too 🤞🏻

Some LC-36 updates. Now that we’ve had access to the pad and integration facility we can share a bit of good news. The propellant farm, oxygen, liquid hydrogen and LNG tanks are all in good shape. This is good luck because these are very long lead items. The water tower is also good. The big support tower is damaged, but it can be repaired in place rather than torn down and replaced. The booster “Never Tell Me The Odds” and the three GS-2s that were onsite in the integration facility also look good. I’ve seen some speculation that we might move directly to the 9x4 configuration, but we won’t do that. Rate manufacturing of 7x2 is going well, and we’re going to continue that at pace as planned and store the stages for use. In addition, we had already been working for some time on eliminating our transporter-erector in favor of an alternative vertical conop, and we’ll now go directly to that; so we don’t need a new transporter-erector. We will fly again before the end of this year. Gradatim Ferociter.

Breaking: Voyager to acquire @Astrobotic, combining lunar landers, surface power, habitats and cislunar operations into one integrated lunar platform. Griffin Mission One, targeting the lunar South Pole NET November 2026, will be Voyager’s first mission to the Moon. Learn more: ow.ly/B80U50Z6uGT ​ $VOYG #MissionReady #AcceleratingtheAdvantage #Artemis

Any Earth Observation images of the Blue Origin launch pad before and after the New Glenn explosion? @DJSnM - have you seen anything?

Gutted for the entire team at Blue. I hope the issue can be identified and the pad can be rapidly repaired. Just thankful everyone is safe.