Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano will serve as pilot on Artemis III, marking a milestone for Europe’s participation in the program which will bring once again a human on the Moon.
NASA has announced the four-member crew assigned to the Artemis III mission, selecting Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano as the mission’s pilot. The selection makes Parmitano the first European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut assigned to NASA’s Artemis program.
The announcement was made on June 9, 2026, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and follows the participation of Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen to Artemis II. Parmitano will join NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, who will serve as mission commander, alongside mission specialists Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio.
The assignment marks a milestone for both Europe and Italy, further reinforcing the European participation in the Artemis program. In fact, Europe has been supporting the program since the earlier stages, supplying, among all things, the European Service Module (ESM) that powers the Orion spacecraft during the Artemis missions.
Europe’s First Artemis Astronaut
An Italian Air Force Colonel, test pilot, and veteran astronaut, Parmitano was selected by ESA in 2009 and has accumulated 366 days in space across two long-duration missions aboard the International Space Station (ISS). During his second mission in 2019, he became the first Italian and the third European astronaut to assume command the ISS.
His career includes six extravehicular activities (EVAs), also commonly known as “spacewalks,” of which two during his first ISS mission and four during the second. Parmitano is also known for dealing with a dangerous spacesuit water leak during a 2013 EVA, his second overall, an incident that prompted important safety improvements for future spacewalks.
While in the U.S., Parmitano has been the ESA liaison at the Johnson Space Center, CapCom (Capsule Communicator) and EVA instructor. Additionally, he also took part in the Underway Recovery Test 12 which simulated the Artemis recovery operations off the Californian coast.
After initially flying operationally in the Italian Air Force on the A-11 AMX, Parmitano graduated as an Experimental Test Pilot at EPNER, the French test pilot school in Istres. During his career, he has accumulated over 2,000 flight hours on over 40 types of aircraft.
In 2020, The Aviationist had the opportunity to interview Luca Parmitano about his experience as a pilot in the Italian Air Force and as an astronaut. You can find it here (in English) or embedded at the end of this story (in Italian).
Europe and Artemis
Parmitano’s selection also reflects the European effort and investment in NASA’s lunar exploration plans. Europe is in fact continuing its long-standing cooperation with NASA, which already sees an important cooperation with the International Space Station.
ESA secured heavily invested in Orion, most notably the European Service Module (ESM), which provides propulsion, electrical power, thermal regulation, and life-support support functions for every Artemis mission. Built by Airbus Defence and Space on behalf of ESA, the ESM has become one of Europe’s most significant contributions to the Artemis program and one of the largest industrial partnerships between Europe and the U.S. in the space sector.
The selection also comes at a time when lunar exploration is increasingly viewed through a geopolitical lens. Replicating the ISS model, through the Artemis program and the Artemis Accords, the U.S. assembled a coalition of international partners committed to a common framework for future exploration beyond Earth orbit.
Europe has emerged as one of the leading contributors to that effort, providing both technological capabilities and financial investment. Parmitano is only the first European astronaut that will now join the effort, with more already in the plans for future missions.
Italy’s Involvement in Space Flight
Parmitano’s selection also highlights Italy’s longstanding contribution to international human spaceflight. The country has a long tradition in the orbital flight, becoming in 1964 the third nation in the world, after the U.S. and the Soviet Unition, to independently operate a space launch site and the fifth to launch its own satellite, called San Marco 1.
Over the past three decades, Italian industry has played a central role in the development of crewed spaceflight infrastructure. Through Thales Alenia Space Italia, Italy became one of the leading contributors to the International Space Station, manufacturing major pressurized elements including Harmony (Node 2), Tranquility (Node 3), the Cupola observation module, and the Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules used during Space Shuttle operations.
That expertise is now being carried forward into the Artemis era. Thales Alenia Space was a key contributor to the Lunar Gateway program, providing major structural elements for modules such as HALO and the Lunar I-Hab habitat being developed for ESA. After the cancellation of Gateway, NASA signed a new agreement with Italy to cooperate in building the future moon base.
The result is a remarkable continuity across generations of exploration programs: Italian-built modules helped sustain human presence in low-Earth orbit aboard the ISS, Italian-built elements will support future operations on the Moon’s surface, and now an Italian astronaut has become the first European assigned to an Artemis mission.
Artemis III
Earlier plans envisioned the Artemis III as the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17. The mission, to be launched in 2027, has now evolved to be focused on validating technologies required for future lunar surface operations.
According to NASA, the crew will launch aboard Orion and conduct rendezvous and docking demonstrations with commercial lunar landing systems, Starship and Blue Moon, being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin, respectively. The mission is intended to verify procedures, software, propulsion interfaces, and life-support systems before astronauts attempt future lunar landing missions.
Blue Moon will be the first to launch, followed by Orion and the four astronauts. The two spacecraft will dock for about two days, allowing the astronauts to conduct tests with Blue Moon.
Blue Moon will then undock, allowing Starship to dock with Orion of a day, although the astronauts will not be able to board it. The entire mission will last approximately two weeks.
As pilot, Parmitano will play a central role in executing these complex spacecraft operations. Similarly to the proximity operations tested during Artemis II, he will likely take manual control of Orion to test the handling of the capsule in proximity of the two landers, in addition to monitoring the automatic rendez-vous and docking operations.
