The four astronauts who will travel to the moon, maybe next year, will soon be made public by NASA.
The Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II mission won’t make a lunar landing, though. Instead, it will conduct a close fly past as part of a test flight to put all of the equipment on NASA’s new crew capsule to the test.
The space agency is already quite confident in Orion’s capabilities because, as part of Artemis I last year, the spacecraft completed a round-trip lunar mission without a crew.
In the Artemis II mission, the Orion and its four astronaut crew will go within 80 miles from the moon’s surface before returning to Earth.
Humans will be transported by Artemis II 270,000 miles beyond our planet, further than ever before. In addition to earning a spot in history, the crew will also have a wonderful view of Earth with the moon standing between them and our own so-called “blue marble.”
The Artemis II mission, according to NASA, was “the first crewed flight test and a crucial step towards establishing a long-term human presence on the moon.”
The Artemis III mission, which is presently scheduled for 2025, is even more audacious than Artemis II and will bring people back to the lunar surface.
How to watch the big reveal
The four astronauts who will go to the moon as part of the Artemis II mission, which is planned for November of next year, will be unveiled by NASA on Monday, April 3.
At a special event at NASA’s Johnson Space Center’s Ellington Field in Houston, Texas, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) will announce the three NASA astronauts and one CSA astronaut.
