NASA promised on Thursday that it would announce on April 3 the names of the four astronauts who will orbit the moon next year as part of the Artemis 2 mission.
They will be the first human beings to travel to the Moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972. That is more than half a century ago.
The crew will be made up of “three Americans and a Canadian,” said NASA chief Bill Nelson.
The launch date is currently scheduled for November 2024, an official from the American space agency said earlier in the week.
The four astronauts will board NASA’s SLS rocket, the most powerful in the world today. They will sit on top of this rocket in the Orion capsule, which will detach once in space and take them to the Moon — without landing there. Once back, they will land in the ocean.
The mission will last about ten days.
The SLS rocket has so far only flown once, during the Artemis 1 mission. It then propelled the empty Orion capsule to the Moon, during a test mission of just over 25 days. The capsule had successfully returned to Earth in December.
All “active” astronauts (there are currently 41) are officially eligible to be part of Artemis 2. But the selection process is kept top secret.
Unchosen astronauts can take comfort in hoping to be selected for Artemis 3, which will be the first mission to land on the Moon.
It is officially scheduled for the end of 2025, although the schedule is very uncertain at this stage.
The spacesuits for this third mission, developed by the American company Axiom Space, will be presented next week in Houston, Texas.