​NASA would like astronauts to have a long-term stay on the surface of the moon, where they can live and conduct research, by 2030 at the latest, said Howard Hu, the head of the Orion program, in an interview with the BBC. The Orion capsule, the first step of the Artemis program, will arrive within 150 km of the moon’s surface on Monday.

“Certainly in this decade we will have people who will eventually live on the surface of the moon for various periods of time. They will have habitats, and there will also be rovers on the ground,” said Howard Hu. “We will send people to the surface of the moon, they will live there and do science,” he added.

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The first people will appear on the surface of the moon no earlier than 2025, although a more realistic date is 2026. No man had set foot on the moon since 1972, and a total of 12 Americans reached the moon between 1969 and 1972.

The Orion capsule, now more than 350,000 km from Earth, has no humans on board and is on the sixth day of its 25-and-a-half-day mission.

It will reach 130 km from the moon’s surface on Monday, then spend a few days at a distance of more than 50,000 km and return to Earth on December 11, if all goes well. The Orion capsule can’t take people to the surface of the moon: it needs a module that SpaceX is building.

The Orion capsule was launched on November 16 by an SLS rocket after several attempts over the summer and fall. The capsule should deliver the first humans around the moon in 2024, but then the mission will not include a moon landing.