It was only two months ago that the world was captivated by the record-setting voyage of Artemis II, which took its four crew members farther from the Earth than anyone in history as they flew around the moon.Long before Artemis II had even left the launchpad, NASA was already deep into the planning of its follow-up mission. Like its predecessor, Artemis III represents a critical step in NASA’s ambitious goal to put humans back on the moon and, eventually, send them to Mars. The crew for Artemis III is scheduled to be revealed in a press conference on Tuesday, during which the agency will provide an update on the mission’s progress toward its planned launch date sometime next year.Here’s what we know about the Artemis III mission and how it fits into NASA’s ambitions to take space travel into an entirely new era.What is Artemis III?As groundbreaking and inspiring as it was in its own right, Artemis II was, above all, a test flight. Its primary objective was to allow NASA to try out the systems it will use to get back to the moon.AdvertisementAdvertisementArtemis III has a similar objective. It will serve as a proving ground for the final step NASA needs to accomplish before it can once again put human footprints on the lunar surface, where it plans to set up a base with the goal of eventually venturing to Mars.There are three key types of spacecraft that NASA needs to return to the moon: rockets to get away from Earth, a module to carry astronauts to their destination and a landing system to take them down to the lunar surface. Artemis II showed that the first two — NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and its Orion spacecraft — worked as intended. Artemis III will be a trial for the third and final piece.The Artemis III mission will take place entirely within low Earth orbit. Its core goal is to test the Orion spacecraft’s ability to rendezvous with a lunar landing spacecraft so NASA can work out any kinks before launching a mission to officially land on the moon.Was this always the plan?Nope. Artemis III was originally going to be the mission that put humans back on the moon for the first time since 1972. But earlier this year, NASA announced that it was changing its pl …
