Shillong, April 4: After over 50 years since the end of the Apollo missions, astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Jeremy Hansen will be the first people to return to the Moon, according to an announcement from NASA. The Artemis-II mission, scheduled to launch from the United States in 2024, will send the four astronauts around the Moon.
The news follows the successful Artemis-I mission, which took place in late last year and demonstrated the Space Launch System’s flexibility in launching humans into lunar orbit on the Orion spacecraft and returning them safely with a controlled splash down.
The declaration will put humanity one step closer to reclaiming the Moon after the Apollo flights by officially launching the 10-day Artemis-II mission’s preparations. Eugene Cernan, the commander of Apollo 17, left his footprints on the Moon in 1972, marking the final time that humans walked on the natural satellite of Earth.
The Apollo successor programme Artemis II will launch its first crewed flight, though not its first lunar landing, with the goal of bringing astronauts back to the moon’s surface this decade and establishing a permanent colony there as a stepping stone to human exploration of Mars.
The four astronauts were chosen from a group of 18 astronauts who make up the Artemis corps, a diverse collection of people from various racial and ethnic origins. With plans for a longer stay than the astronauts of the Apollo era, Nasa intends to send the first woman and the first person of colour to the Moon.
The 10-day Artemis II mission, which will travel 2.3 million kilometres, is intended to show that Orion’s life-support systems and other systems will function as intended while carrying men into deep space.
