They will be the first human beings to fly to the Moon since 1972. NASA revealed on Monday the names of the four astronauts who will fly to our only natural satellite in November 2024, without landing there, for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission. 1972.
3 Americans and 1 Canadian are the four astronauts selected to participate in the Artemis 2 mission:
Gregory Reid Wiseman. This 47-year-old American, a former fighter pilot, has been aboard the international space station for six months now. He previously served as director of NASA’s astronaut office.
christina koch. 44 years old, she is an American engineer who has already completed 328 days of space flight, including six extravehicular departures.
Jeremy Hansen. 47 years old, he is a fighter pilot and a member of the Canadian Space Agency.
Victor Jerome Glover. At 46 years old, he is the first black man to be sent into space as part of the Apollo missions.
The announcement, made from Houston, Texas, comes to close a secret recruitment process, operated among the 41 “active” astronauts of the US space program.
A historical selection
All previous Apollo missions had sent white men into space.
Therefore, this new selection is historic in more ways than one, as it will mark the landing of the first woman and the first person of color on the moon.
According to the mission schedule, the four selected astronauts will fly to the Moon in November 2024, aboard NASA’s SLS rocket – the most powerful in the world today – for ten days.
At BFMTV, Philippe Henarejos, editor-in-chief of the magazine sky and space, he said that the rocket’s power is due to “the long flames of the two side boosters”, giving it 75% of its lift-off thrust.
A thousand miles from the surface of the Moon
Once in space, the capsule containing the four astronauts will be detached, to take them around the Moon without landing there, some thousand kilometers from its surface.
The Artemis 2 mission, due to lift off in 20 months, does not pose a “fundamental scientific challenge,” according to Gilles Dawidowicz, vice president of France’s astronomical society, but it allows the United States to remember its “technological and military dominance somewhere.” “. A third Artemis mission, this time landing on the Moon, is scheduled for 2025.
Source: BFM TV
