NASA has named a team of four astronauts who will embark on a historic venture around the moon ahead of a return to the lunar surface.
Artemis II will see the crew board the Orion spacecraft, carried by the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket – the most powerful ever built – for a flyby of Earth’s only natural satellite.
The team are American astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman, and Canadian spaceman Jeremy Hansen.
The 10-day mission marks the first crewed step of the Artemis programme, which began with a voyage with nobody aboard last November to test whether Orion and SLS are up to standard.
It sent the Orion, atop the next-generation, multibillion-dollar rocket, on a 1.4 million-mile journey beyond the moon.
Artemis II, set for 2024, will further put the hardware through its paces – specifically Orion’s life-support systems.
It will send humans further into space than any programme since Apollo, which was the last to put man on the moon.
Asteroid to pass between Earth and moon in 17,500mph close encounter
Spacesuit lands astronauts with a new look
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captures image of a dying star
Apollo 17 took place between 7 and 19 December 1973 and was the longest lunar landing in history.
NASA aims to put the first woman and person of colour on the moon with Artemis III, which is planned for 2025.
The US space agency hopes to use Artemis to build a base camp and conduct annual missions – and also use it as a test bed for even more ambitious quests, including getting a human to Mars.
