See NASA's Artemis III astronauts meet Trump at the White House as they train for a critical 2027 moon lander test flight (photos)

President Donald Trump met with NASA's Artemis III crew on Thursday (Oct. 28) at the White House. The Artemis III team includes NASA's Randy Bresnik, as commander; Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio, as mission specialists; and ESA's Luca Parmitano, as pilot. The crew, along with backups Bob Hines and NASA chief Jared Isaacman, visited the Oval Office and posed for photographs with the President.

This meeting occurred six months after the Artemis II crew's visit on April 29. The Artemis III mission is set to launch to low Earth orbit in the summer of 2027. The primary goal of the mission is to dock NASA's Orion capsule with either SpaceX's Starship or Blue Origin's Blue Moon spacecraft. These landers will take astronauts to the lunar surface and return them safely to Earth. Artemis III will serve as a crucial test for this process, with the first crewed lunar landing planned for Artemis IV in 2028.

The specific landers chosen for Artemis III are still uncertain. NASA aims to fly both Starship and Blue Moon, but the readiness of these private landers is unclear. Artemis IV will face the same uncertainty, as it remains to be seen which spacecraft will successfully land astronauts on the moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.