00:07My guest today on 12 Minutes with is Luca Parmitano, an Italian astronaut for the European Space Agency who has
00:15been selected as the pilot of NASA's Artemis III mission, the next step toward the moon landing.
00:22Welcome Luca Parmitano and thank you for joining us.
00:25Thank you for having me.
00:26You were the first Italian commander on the International Space Station, the first Italian to ever perform a space walk,
00:34the first to ever organize a DJ set from space and now you will be the first European to be
00:41part of an Artemis mission.
00:44Bring us back to the moment in which you received a call telling you that you were going to be
00:49part of this adventure.
00:51Yeah, that's really recent so it's really fresh in my mind and I don't think I will ever forget that
00:58moment because this mission was not at all on my horizon.
01:02I wasn't thinking about an assignment. I was focusing on another job that I was doing at the time, which
01:11was taking care of the crew on orbit on the International Space Station.
01:14So when I when I saw the phone number of the bus of the astronaut corps, I thought it was
01:20going to be something related to that.
01:21So when I when I answered the phone, my mind was about 400 kilometers above the Earth thinking about about
01:28the mission ongoing.
01:29And when when he told me, hey, look, we want you to be the pilot on the Artemis mission, I
01:37didn't register for a second.
01:41And so I actually told my boss, I said, can you say that again? I was in this group.
01:46And when he told me the exact same words, I was speechless, which is quite unusual for me.
01:52And I was really grateful right away. I was flooded with gratitude and the opportunity.
01:58But also I was humbled by the mission and the achievements that we needed to to put in place in
02:06order to complete it successfully.
02:08The Artemis free mission is set to launch in 2027. It does not involve a moon landing.
02:15Instead, you will stay in low Earth orbit to test the technology essential for a future moon landing.
02:21How important is this mission for NASA's moon program?
02:26It's quite indispensable to lower the acceptable risk for them for the moon landing.
02:31You see, we are going to stay in Earth orbit because we don't know what the behavior of the spacecraft
02:39is going to be when performing very complex maneuver,
02:43like rejoining close proximity operations and docking with two different spacecraft.
02:50None of this has been tested. None of this has been yet even simulated.
02:55We are working with the providers of the human landing systems to see how we can integrate our simulations.
03:03But we don't really know the behavior. So there is going to be an extensive involvement of the crew, the
03:10commander and the pilot.
03:11We will perform both maneuvers in automatic systems, with automatic systems and manual systems.
03:19We will always shadow the automatic approach because it's something that hasn't been tested yet.
03:25So it's indispensable because once we achieve our mission, then we'll know that we can complete these actions.
03:34And the next crew can focus on the actual landing on the surface of the moon.
03:41And NASA has described this mission as one of the most complex human space flights in recent history.
03:48But then what makes this mission so challenging from a technological but also from a human perspective?
03:56From a technological point of view and logistics point of view, we have three launches that have to happen in
04:04close proximity and from very different spacecraft.
04:09So the first one to launch is going to be the spacecraft from Blue Origin.
04:14It's the only one that can loiter for about 30 days, giving us a little bit of a buffer to
04:21launch with our SLS system and the Orion spacecraft.
04:25We have a limit of about 21 days of resources.
04:29So we have three weeks to launch, join up with the Blue Origin spacecraft, rendezvous dock.
04:36We're going to have two astronauts going inside.
04:39And those are the technological aspects that are really complex.
04:43And then we're going to separate, fly around, check any visible effect of the docking rendezvous.
04:52And that's where we're going to have the third launch of the SpaceX vehicle.
04:57They're also going to go into Earth orbit.
04:59And we are going to perform two rendezvous and docking again manually and with automatic systems.
05:05So again, technology that's never been tested.
05:08And from a crew point of view, the spacecraft, the Orion, is only about eight or nine cubic meters.
05:15So people living in a close, in a small, close environment for up to three weeks in an environment that
05:22was not designed for the spacecraft,
05:24because Orion is designed for deep space where conditions are completely different in Earth orbit.
05:29So there's a lot going on.
05:31There's a lot of training and a lot of thoughts going into what the mission is going to look like.
05:35And indeed about this training, how are you and then your other crew members getting ready for such an adventure?
05:44So our training is very complex and wonderfully different and varied.
05:50Only last week we were at Pax River, which is the United States Naval Test Pilot School.
05:55We were there refreshing our skills as test pilots and test engineers.
05:59We flew there with two aircraft just to get refreshed on some of the techniques.
06:05Then this week we started with several simulations.
06:09The first one in the mock-up with full suited and getting familiar with our spacesuits.
06:15And then yesterday, Andrea and I were in a six hour simulation dealing with several different malfunctions that we had
06:25to deal with together with the ground.
06:26These simulations are going to go on for the rest of the summer.
06:31And then in the fall, we're going to start working with the two landing systems so that we do complex
06:35simulation, both with the ground teams and the flight.
06:38You sound indeed very busy and you're going into orbit, as you said, with three other astronauts from NASA.
06:45On Earth, we know that the political relationship between the EU and the US has been very tense lately.
06:52How is it in orbit?
06:53It's completely different.
06:55We don't look at what's happening at political level.
06:59We are operators.
07:00We are used to, there's an expression, to work across the aisle.
07:06We are not interested in political backgrounds or political heritage or political views or religion.
07:17We are focused on exploration, on technology, on science.
07:22We like to build bridges, not walls.
07:25And so even though this is indeed a race with a political background to go back to the moon, we
07:33as Europeans, we as Italians, we want to be strong partners of the United States in this race.
07:39And we all feel a common goal, which is that of the betterment of humankind on Earth, our life.
07:50And this is the next step.
07:52So we are joined by a common goal.
07:54And you mentioned before competition.
07:56We know that China and India are also trying to get to the moon.
08:01Is this posing any pressure, let's say, to the Artemis program?
08:07I would say so.
08:09I think there is a real race going on.
08:13There is a pressure.
08:15That's why I believe that NASA administration, a couple of months ago, made those announcements through the ignition program where
08:24they want to accelerate the number of flights and the sequence of flights.
08:29But with that pressure comes also a positive attitude that they want to achieve it.
08:36And we as Europeans have an opportunity to be part of this.
08:40So as a staff member of the European Space Agency, I believe that it's a positive move that things are
08:48moving.
08:49NASA is targeting mid to late 2027 for Artemis III.
08:54But some experts say the timeline is kind of ambitious.
08:58What are your thoughts on this?
09:00I think it is ambitious.
09:02And I think it should be ambitious.
09:03If you want to achieve complex objectives, you have to be ambitious and push hard.
09:12We are getting ready for this mission as if it's going to happen within one year.
09:18If that doesn't happen, it will not be because we are not ready.
09:23It will be because part of the system is not working at the same pace that we can put in.
09:29In a moving speech after being selected for Artemis III, you said that Italy was your launchpad and that the
09:37European Space Agency was your launch tower.
09:40What did Italy give you and what will you bring into orbit from your European identity?
09:47You have to think that when I was only 19 years old, Italy invested a lot in a young man
09:55that had big dreams.
09:58So I was able to go to the Italian Air Force Academy that gave me education, not only on paper,
10:06but also professional education.
10:08The Italian Air Force provided me with skills and a background that is very useful today in my job.
10:14But in general, the Italian system, which is a 100% free education system, gave me a lot of different
10:22tools that allowed me to continue growing as a young man, as an expert, as a professional, as a pilot.
10:30And then for Europeans, we have an incredible gift.
10:35People my age, we were not born Europeans.
10:38We became Europeans.
10:41This identity was desired.
10:44This identity has been a goal, something that we wanted to achieve.
10:48And so I bring that strive.
10:51I think that desire.
10:52I bring that strong feeling that this is something that I've always wanted, that we wanted as Europeans.
10:57And I bring that with me to share with everybody else.
11:00What will you miss the most when in orbit?
11:04Oh, I can already answer that question.
11:06Absolutely nothing.
11:07It's the time on orbit is limited.
11:09We all know that.
11:10Even if you go for a long duration missions, I spent 366 days in orbit on two different missions before.
11:18We know that it's borrowed time.
11:21It doesn't belong to us.
11:23So when you go on such a mission, when you have that privilege, you leave everything on the ground and
11:28knowing that you will be there.
11:30And you and you go up thinking of everything that you can get from living on orbit.
11:36So I will personally, I already know that I will not miss much.
11:40I will be looking forward to a good coffee once I land.
11:43But I would say that that's about it.
11:45Thank you very much, Luca Parmitano, for joining us on 12 minutes with and good luck for the Artemis free.
11:57Thank you very much.
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