The Artemis 2 space mission, which will take a crew of astronauts to the Moon for the first time since 1972, is scheduled for November 2024, the US agency NASA announced Tuesday.
The schedule is made possible by the success of the Artemis 1 mission, which ended in December after 25 days in space.
The Orion spacecraft, with no one on board for a first test flight, successfully orbited the Moon before returning to Earth.
NASA Associate Administrator, Jim Free, gave a detailed analysis of this ongoing mission at a press conference, specifying that the first feedback should allow the second Artemis mission to land by the end of November 2024, or in more than a year. and a half.
NASA is expected to announce this year the four crew members of Artemis 2, who will go around the Moon, without landing, during a ten-day mission, knowing only that a Canadian is part of the crew.
Then the Artemis 3 mission, which should bring astronauts to the lunar surface, is expected in 2025.
Artemis, in Greek mythology, is the twin sister of Apollo and a goddess associated with the Moon.
NASA’s goal is to establish a lasting presence on the Moon by building a base on its surface and a space station in orbit around it.
Learning to live on the Moon should make it possible to test all the technologies necessary for an even more complex journey: the round trip of a crew to Mars.
Source: TSF
