He apologized because his voice was getting out of hand. It happens to astronauts too, apparently. Even those who have spent months in space, commanded the International Space Station, faced real emergencies with a helmet full of water and a vacuum just outside.
I apologize for being so emotional, I am honored, but above all I am grateful to everyone who made it possible for me to make it to this flight.
He said Luca Parmitanoimmediately following NASA’s announcement. A few words, held back with difficulty, in a piece of news that for Italy weighs much more than a simple nomination: the Sicilian ESA astronaut will be the pilot of Artemis IIIthe mission scheduled for 2027 that will prepare for the human return to the Moon.
Artemis III will be an inhabited mission, but its primary theater will still be low Earth orbit. The capsule Orion will launch from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, atop the rocket SLSNASA’s large carrier for lunar missions. There will be four astronauts on board: Randy Bresnik as commander, Luca Parmitano as pilot, Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio as mission specialists. Bob Hines was listed as a reserve member.
First the dockings
The Moon, this time, will remain in the background. Artemis III will serve to test one of the most delicate parts of the new lunar program: the rendezvous and docking maneuvers between Orion and the test versions of the commercial landers developed by Blue Origin And SpaceX. Translated without taking away weight from the matter: a spacecraft with humans on board will have to meet and hook up in space with the vehicles designed to carry astronauts from the lunar area to the surface in subsequent missions. Inside there are software, communications, propulsion, interfaces, maneuver times, safety margins. The less cinematic part of space exploration, the one that decides whether the rest can really happen.
NASA presents Artemis III as a key risk-reducing mission ahead of Artemis IV, billed as the first crewed mission to the lunar South Pole in 2028. The Artemis program, therefore, proceeds in steps. First the flight around the Moon of Artemis II, then this test in Earth orbit, then the attempt to bring humans back to the lunar surface. Fewer flags planted hastily, more bolts checked one by one. Less immediate myth, more engineering.
Within this scheme, Parmitano’s role has both a technical and symbolic value. NASA has specified that this is the first time that a NASA astronautEuropean Space Agency he is assigned to an Artemis mission. ESA, for its part, will also provide the third European Service Modulethe European module that supports Orion with energy, propulsion and essential functions during flight. For Europe it is a place inside the car, not a photo next to the car.
The place of Italy
Parmitano, born in Paternò, Sicily, former Air Force test pilot and ESA astronaut since 2009, arrives at Artemis III with a curriculum that already contains a lot of space history. He flew twice on the International Space Station, commanded the ISS during Expedition 61 and was the first Italian to do so. For many, however, he also remains the astronaut of the spacewalk interrupted in 2013, when water began to accumulate in his helmet during an extravehicular activity. A scene that seems written by someone who wants to exaggerate and instead belongs to the technical chronicle of space: very little margin, procedures, clarity, return to the hatch.
In his first words after the announcement, Parmitano constructed a simple image: Italy as a launch base, ESA as a tower, NASA as a rocket. An almost inevitable metaphor, of course, but in his mouth it worked because it didn’t sound prepared for a postcard. He thanked the country that gave him training, the European Space Agency that allowed him to grow and NASA that will bring him into this crew. Then he thanked his family, especially his daughters, calling them “the energy for my soul”. And he closed with a “thank you” in Italian.
In the meantime, Italy remains linked to the program also through the space supply chain. Europe participates in Orion with the service modules, while the Italian contribution also includes industrial skills and the Italian Space Agency, in a program that now resembles less and less the old black and white lunar race and more and more an international construction site full of partners, private companies, suppliers, intermediate tests and moving deadlines.
The Moon can wait
The choice to remain in Earth orbit with Artemis III may seem like a lateral step, especially for those waiting for the immediate story of the return to the Moon. Instead, it is precisely here that the difference between space propaganda and space program is measured. Bringing people to the lunar surface with a new architecture means making different systems work together, built by different entities, with different responsibilities. Orion, SLS, landers, suits, communications, training, security. Each piece must do its job while the others do theirs, without transforming ambition into improvisation.
This is why the name of Luca Parmitano Inside Artemis III also tells something less spectacular and more solid: the lunar exploration of the present passes through missions that resemble dress rehearsals, not isolated gestures. Rockets can be seen, suits can be photographed, the Moon always moves us. Docking in orbit, on the other hand, makes less noise. But they are the threshold. Before setting foot on moon dust again, someone has to make sure the door opens properly. Parmitano will be there, in the pilot’s seat, doing exactly that.
