Houston, Texas - Luca Parmitano, an Italian astronaut, will be the pilot of NASA's Artemis 3 voyage, the first European to join one of the program's missions, the space agency announced Tuesday.

Parmitano, who will represent the European Space Agency, is one of four men named as crewmembers and tasked with carrying out Artemis 3, which is targeting launch in late 2027.

Artemis is a series of missions geared towards eventually returning humans to the Moon.

During the NASA unveiling, Parmitano grew emotional as he thanked his family and the space agencies that made his nomination possible.

He called Italy his "launchpad" into space and ESA a bridge, dubbing NASA "the rocket, figuratively and literally."

Three NASA astronauts are also on the crew: Randy Bresnik will command the mission, and Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio round out the rest of the team.

This past spring's Artemis II mission saw humans conduct a lunar flyby, but the third phase will stay closer to Earth.

The primary goals of the trip include testing the abilities of NASA's Orion spacecraft, as well as a rendezvous with lunar landers developed by the private space companies SpaceX and Blue Origin.

The timeline of the mission has been thrown into question after Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket exploded during a ground test late last month.

During Tuesday's event at Houston's Johnson Space Center, John Couluris of Blue Origin acknowledged the "significant anomaly" but insisted the company's lander will be ready for Artemis 3 on time.

"We have redoubled our efforts and are moving forward," he said.