- NASA has named the crew that will travel to and from the Moon on the Artemis II mission.
- The crew won’t touch down on the Moon but will spend a total of 10 days travelling to the Moon.
- A launch window for the mission has yet to be announced.
Last year, the Orion spacecraft travelled 2.25 million kilometres on a round-trip from Earth to the Moon and back again. This was the first phase NASA’s Artemis mission.
This series of missions will see the eventual return of humans to the Moon. The first phase saw the Orion spacecraft travelling to Lunar orbit before returning to Earth. The next phase of the mission, Artemis II, will see a crew travel to the Moon and back. That crew was revealed at an event hosted by NASA on Monday.
The crew, pictured above, is:
- Commander Reid Wiseman (bottom centre),
- Pilot Victor Glover (top centre),
- Mission Specialist 1 Christina Hammock Koch (left),
- Mission Specialist 2 Jeremy Hansen (right).
The crew announcement sees Koch and Glover becoming the first woman and person of colour respectively to travel to the Moon. In addition, Hansen will become the first Canadian to travel to the Moon.
“We are going back to the Moon and Canada is at the center of this exciting journey,” minister responsible for the Canadian Space Agency, François-Philippe Champagne said in a press release.
“Thanks to our longstanding collaboration with NASA, a Canadian astronaut will fly on this historic mission. On behalf of all Canadians, I want to congratulate Jeremy for being at the forefront of one of the most ambitious human endeavors ever undertaken. Canada’s participation in the Artemis program is not only a defining chapter of our history in space, but also a testament to the friendship and close partnership between our two nations.”
While the crew will travel to the Moon, they won’t be landing as part of Artemis II, that event is scheduled to be the focus of Artemis III. The ultimate goal of these missions is to explore the potential of using the Moon as a launch base for missions to Mars and eventually, colonise our closest celestial satellite.
The launch date for Artemis II has yet to be set but once it has, the crew will spend a total of 10 days travelling to and from the Moon.
This momentous event will see humanity coming within sniffing distance of the Moon for the first time in over 50 years.
“The Artemis II crew represents thousands of people working tirelessly to bring us to the stars. This is their crew, this is our crew, this is humanity’s crew,” Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator said in a statement.
“NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Hammock Koch, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen, each has their own story, but, together, they represent our creed: E pluribus unum – out of many, one. Together, we are ushering in a new era of exploration for a new generation of star sailors and dreamers – the Artemis Generation.”
Last year in November, NASA announced that it was constructing a Lunar Exploration Ground Site in Matjiesfontein. This site will work in tandem with others around to the world to keep in contact with the Artemis crew as they travel to the Moon.
[Source – NASA]
[Image – NASA]
