On Thursday, NASA promised to announce on April 3 the names of the four astronauts who will fly to the moon next year as part of the Artemis 2 mission, reports AFP.

They will be the first humans to visit the moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972. This is more than half a century ago.

The crew will consist of “three Americans and one Canadian,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

The launch date is currently slated for November 2024, a US space agency official said earlier this week.

Four astronauts will climb aboard NASA’s SLS rocket, the most powerful rocket in the world today. They will sit atop the rocket in the Orion capsule, which will detach in space and fly around the moon without landing.

The mission will last about ten days.

The SLS rocket has flown only once so far, during the Artemis 1 mission. The Orion spacecraft, which had no one on board during its first test flight, was equipped with the new SLS rocket — the most powerful in the world — and successfully flew around the moon. before returning to Earth.

A detailed analysis of the mission is still underway, NASA Deputy Administrator Jim Freeh said at a press conference. But initial results should allow the second Artemis mission to launch “in late November 2024,” he said. It’s more than a year and a half away.

More than 41 candidates

All “active” astronauts (currently 41 of them) are officially eligible to join the Artemis 2 mission. But the selection process is kept strictly secret.

In late August of last year, then-Chairman of the Astronaut Office Reid Wiseman said he was looking for technical expertise and team spirit among the shortlisted candidates. He has since given up and become one of the eligible astronauts.

The new chief of the astronaut office, Joe Acaba, has just replaced him and is at the forefront of the decision-making process.

Those astronauts who were not selected can console themselves with the hope that they will be selected to participate in Artemis 3, which will be the first mission to land on the moon.

This is officially planned for the end of 2025, although the timing is very vague at this stage.

Spacesuits for this third mission, developed by the American company Axiom Space, will be presented next week in Houston, Texas.

On Thursday, Bill Nelson spoke during the announcement of Joe Biden’s budget proposal. The budget calls for $27.2 billion for NASA, a little more than a 7 percent increase over the previous year.

Return to the Moon

The Artemis program plans to send the first woman and the first black person to the moon, while the Apollo program sent 12 men, all white, to the moon.

In Greek mythology, Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo and a goddess associated with the Moon.

NASA’s goal is to establish a permanent presence on the Moon by building a base on its surface and a space station in its orbit.

As they learn to live on the moon, astronauts and NASA will test all the technologies needed for an even more challenging journey: a crew that will go to Mars and return.

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