NASA Announces the crew for the upcoming Artemis III mission

Astronauts will test out multiple space systems in low Earth orbit

We've all been thrilled with the return of astronauts to the Moon during the recent Artemis II mission, which swung around the Moon before heading back to Earth. It was the first time since 1972 that humans had travelled beyond Earth orbit and the furthest that astronauts had ever been away from our home planet.

NASA announced the crew of Artemis III this week. They are:

• NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, commander
• ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano, pilot
• NASA astronaut Andre Douglas, mission specialist
• NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, mission specialist

The Artemis III crew.

Unlike Artemis II, this mission scheduled to fly in 2027 will remain in low Earth orbit. There's been comparisons to the Apollo 9 mission in March 1969 which tested the Lunar Lander before it was sent to the Moon.

Unlike the Apollo Lunar landing where each mission was a single launch of a Saturn V, Artemis missions from now on will a combination of two or more spacecraft from partners beyond NASA. It will test one or both commercial landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin along with rendezvous and docking. These will be launched separately from the SLS (Space Launch System) which will carry the Artemis III crew. 

"Artemis III will be unlike anything we’ve ever undertaken. A multi-launch campaign bringing together the most powerful rockets in the world to test rendezvous, docking, and interoperability across multiple systems close to Earth before we return astronauts to the lunar surface." said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman this week. 

You can read more about Artemis III at the NASA page here.

Celestron NexStar SE vs Evolution Telescopes

The upgraded Evolutions series have a few handy features

If you're looking for a reasonably large but portable, computerised telescope for both planetary and deep sky observation as well as astrophotography, there's two options from Celestron that are worth considering:

• Celestron NexStar 8SE
• Celestron Evolution 8

Have you noticed the two bright "stars" this week? 

This weekend is a chance to see three planets

If you've had a chance to look into the westerly sky just as it was getting dark over the last week or so, you might have seen two stars that have outshone any other star in the sky.

We have had quite a few people asking us exactly what they've seen. 

What's been in the sky is a conjunction of the planets Venus and Jupiter and if you had a clear horizon, you might have been able to spot Mercury as well. 

Of the two bright planets, Venus is the brighter and Jupiter is fainter and a little bit more yellow in colour.

A conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and Mercury on the evening of the 13th of June 2026 at about 6.00pm as seen from Sydney. Image via Stellarium. 

What's a conjunction?

This is when objects line up in such a way that they appear quite close to each other in the sky but are in fact quite a long way apart. Their movements across the sky are a combination of our own orbit around the Sun each year and their own orbits.  

This illustration will give you a very rough idea of where the planets are at the moment. Venus, Mercury and Jupiter are lined up away from the Sun compared to the Earth.  This image is not to scale in the slightest.

The stars are pretty much fixed in the same positions, and any noticeable movements would only occur over the span of many, many human lifetimes. If you see a bright "star" either on its own or with others that you have only just noticed, it will be one of our Solar System planets putting on a show!

Planetary conjunctionslike these might appear close to your eyes but are still too far apart to view with a telescope. Well worth checking out in any pair of binoculars however.  

Cheers,

Earl White

BINTEL

13th June 2026