Four astronauts – three Americans and a Canadian – will depart Earth as early as November on the Artemis II mission to orbit the moon, the first time humans will return to the moon since 1972, it was announced Monday, according to Anadolu Agency.
Christian Hammock Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman along with Canadian Jeremy Hansen were named as crew members by NASA and the Canada Space Agency at a joint press conference at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
“Together, we are ushering in a new era of exploration for a new generation of star sailors and dreamers – the Artemis Generation,” said HASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
The mission commander is Wiseman, Glover is the pilot, and Hammock Koch and Hansen are Mission Specialists.
The moon orbit mission is slated to launch as early as November, 2024. While the astronauts will not land on the lunar surface in the Orion spacecraft, they will orbit the moon for 10 days.
If successful, the next step will be the Artemis III mission to land humans on the moon in 2025, 53 years after the first Apollo landing. It is part of the goal of setting up a long-term human presence on the moon. But even that is not enough to satisfy the Americans.
“It is the next step that gets humanity…on Mars,” Glover told a cheering audience.
The Artemis II mission follows Artemis I, where an unmanned spaceship using NASA’s new mega-rocket spent 25 days orbiting the moon last November.
Canada and the US have worked on space exploration together since the early 1960s.
“This time Canada is writing history with our American friends it’s not even a new chapter,’ said Canada Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne after touring the space center on Sunday. “For me, it’s almost like a new book in space exploration.”