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Artemis III Training with Debbie O'Connell

37:19 recording · EN · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

Debbie O'Connell is racing to train the Artemis III crew for a 2027 launch and first lander docking.

  1. Training started the morning after crew assignmentThe Artemis III crew reported at 8 a.m. the day after the June 9, 2026 announcement, and O'Connell was there, having bumped her head at the first event.
  2. Rendezvous with the landers drives the training planDocking with HLS for the first time is the new untested element, so it takes the largest share of simulation time.
  3. Most of what they train should never be usedO'Connell says the most surprising thing is how little of the training she wants the crew to need in flight — worst-case drills build skills, not expectations.
Executive Summary AI
  • Host Leah Cheshire opens Episode 434 of Houston We Have a Podcast by recalling that on June 9, 2026 NASA named the Artemis III crew — Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio, Andre Douglas and ESA's Luca Parmitano, with Bob Hines as backup — and that they reported for training at 8 a.m. the very next morning.0:20
  • Chief Training Officer Debbie O'Connell explains she has been at NASA about 15 years, spending roughly 10 of them as an ETHOS flight controller on the International Space Station, writing procedures for the first Dragon missions DM1, DM2 and Crew 1, then working Starliner before jumping to Orion for the first time on this assignment.3:50
  • She describes the CTO job as managing the whole training flow — the hardware, facilities, software and a team of instructors — and ultimately validating that the crew is ready to fly, with the mission targeted for next year, 2027.5:34
  • The biggest improvement carried over from Artemis II, whose CTO Jackie Mahaffey is now her manager, is the ability to play back the crew's simulation performance so they can review teamwork, verbiage and displays, along with updated spacecraft sound files corrected using feedback from the flown Artemis II mission.13:29
  • O'Connell names rendezvous and docking with the HLS landers as the new, untested phase that will get the most training time, says she hopes the crew never has to use the failure scenarios they drill, and plans to watch the launch in person at KSC.31:23
Key Quote
“It was actually the first thing that I told the Artemis III crew is the two things you have to know about me is I'm hardheaded and I'm a mom.”
— Debbie O'Connell6:30
Key Quote
“It's a fire hose of information.”
— Debbie O'Connell19:23
Key Quote
“They're an all-star team. I'd say the thing that stands out to me is that they're all very dedicated to this mission.”
— Debbie O'Connell19:54