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According to an announcement made by NASA, astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Jeremy Hansen will be the first people to return to the Moon since the Apollo missions came to an end more than half a century ago.
This will mark the first time humans have traveled to the moon in over half a century. The four astronauts will complete a trip around the Moon as part of the Artemis-II mission, which is slated to take out from the United States in 2024.
The announcement comes after the accomplishment of the Artemis-I mission, which took place toward the end of the preceding year and demonstrated the adaptability of the Space Launch System by launching humans into lunar orbit on the Orion spacecraft and safely returning them with a controlled splashdown.
The proclamation will officially commence the preparations for the Artemis-II mission, which will take place over the course of ten days. This will bring humanity one step closer to regaining the Moon following the Apollo flights. In 1972, the commander of Apollo 17, Eugene Cernan, imprinted his footprints on the Moon. This event, which marked the final time that humans walked on the natural satellite of Earth, was the last occasion that humans left footprints on the Moon.
The Apollo successor program Artemis II will launch its first crewed flight, but it will not be its first lunar landing. The mission’s objective is to return astronauts to the moon’s surface within the next decade and establish a permanent colony there as a stepping stone for human exploration of Mars. Artemis II will launch its first crewed flight in 2025.
The four astronauts came from a pool of eighteen astronauts that make up the Artemis corps. The Artemis corps is comprised of a diverse group of persons hailing from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. NASA has plans to send the first woman and the first person of color to the moon. These plans call for the astronauts to remain on the moon for a longer period of time than the Apollo astronauts did.
The purpose of the 10-day Artemis II mission is to demonstrate that Orion’s life-support systems and other systems will perform as designed while sending astronauts into deep space. The mission will go 2.3 million kilometers.
