CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Western Branch High School graduate Dr. Andre Douglas is among the four astronauts revealed by NASA for the Artemis III mission as a mission specialist on Tuesday.
Along with Douglas, the crew will be comprised of NASA's Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio, and the European Space Agency's Luca Parmitano. The Artemis III won't fly to the moon or land on the surface. Instead, they’ll orbit Earth while practicing docking their Orion capsule with two lunar landers.
At the time of Douglas's selection, he was a NASA astronaut candidate and had also held a senior position at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab supporting planetary defense, space exploration, maritime robotics, and ocean system missions. While engineering at APL, Douglas assisted in the development of NASA's DART planetary defense mission with the fault management team and several other NASA projects.
Douglas was also apart of the Artemis II test flight backup crew, NASA's first crewed mission under the Artemis campaign.
The Virginia native graduated with a bachelor's in mechanical engineering from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Douglas earned his master's degree in mechanical engineering, naval architecture, marine engineering, electrical and computer engineering, and his doctorate in systems engineering.
Douglas has a broad background in the U.S. Coast Guard serving as a naval architect, damage control assistant, salvage engineer, and officer of the deck.
Watch previous coverage: Artemis II crew names new moon crater to honor commander's late wife from VB
Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are racing to deliver the lunar landers. The two-week demo is targeted for 2027. Blue Origin suffered a recent setback when its massive rocket exploded during an engine-firing test on the launch pad in Florida, shaking nearby homes and illuminating the sky with an orange fireball.
NASA's Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the moon's surface for the first time since the 1970s. A recent revamp of the program announced by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman aims to fast-track it similarly to the Apollo era, adding the upcoming spaceflight around Earth before eyeing a lunar landing in 2028.
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