NASA announced the list of crews that will fly by the Moon in 2024

On April 3, the United States Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the list of astronauts who will fly around the Moon in 2024, opening the mission to return humans to the surface for the first time. lunar half a century later.

According to NASA’s statement, crew participating in the mission named Artemis II This will include three Americans and one Canadian.

Earth seen from the Moon

The Earth seen from the Moon. (Illustrative photo: NASA).

Three NASA astronauts – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch – all have experience working on the International Space Station (ISS). Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency will make its first space flight. Notably, astronaut Koch, 44, an electrical engineer who participated in the first all-female spacewalk aboard the ISS, will be the first woman to fly around the Moon.

According to NASA’s announcement, Reid Wiseman, 47, a US Navy pilot who previously served as NASA’s chief astronaut, has been named commander of the Artemis II mission, scheduled for November 2024 with a crew flying around the Moon but not landing there. he. Meanwhile, Glover, 46, also a naval pilot and the first African American to serve as a crew member aboard the ISS, will be the flight’s pilot.

Koch, the only woman on the Artemis II crew, and Hansen, a 47-year-old Canadian Armed Forces pilot, will serve as mission specialists.

The 10-day Artemis II mission will test NASA’s Space Launch System as well as the Orion spacecraft’s life support systems. Under the Artemis program, NASA aims to send astronauts to the Moon by 2025, more than five decades after the historic Apollo missions ended in 1972.

In addition to sending the first woman and first person of color to the Moon, NASA hopes to establish a permanent human presence on the lunar surface and eventually launch a journey to the stars – fire – which is expected to take place in 2040.

Article source: VNA/News Journal