Who will fly around the moon in 2024?

At the beginning of April, the US space agency NASA will announce the astronauts who will take part in the Artemis II mission in 2024. They will then make a trip around the celestial body.

In the coming years, a number of countries are planning manned missions to the Moon. But unlike the historic Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, there are now plans to build a lunar base.

In the news: NASA CEO Bill Nelson announced Thursday during the annual “State of NASA” address that the astronaut names will be announced on April 3.

• “Four astronauts, three from America and one from Canada, are going to fly around the moon,” Nelson said. If all goes well with preparations – and it seems so for now – Artemis II will be launched in November 2024.
• Astronauts will spend about ten days in space. They will fly by the Moon several times, and then return to Earth.
• It will be – as the name suggests – Artemis’ second mission. The first, then unmanned, flight was carried out at the end of last year. The Space Launch System (SLS), the heavy launch vehicle being developed for the missions, was then tested for the first time, along with the Orion spacecraft and the European Service Module, the primary power and propulsion component of Orion.

Landing on the moon in 2025

And then: If all goes well with Artemis II, NASA will prepare the third mission. In 2025 at the earliest, astronauts will set foot on the moon for the first time since the 1970s.

• During the mission, a woman and a non-white person will walk the orb for the first time. There is even a chance that a European – and perhaps a Belgian – was among the crew.
• On Wednesday 15 March some details about the mission will be announced. After that, NASA, together with the American company Axiom Space, will present a prototype of the spacesuits that the astronauts will wear on the moon. Last year it was announced that Axiom would be developing it.
• The suits will only be used during Artemis III. NASA is planning a large number of manned missions. At the end of this decade, a manned lunar base should also be built, which, along with the planned circumlunar space station, Lunar Gateway, should be used as a “stepping stone” for manned missions to Mars in the 2030s. or 2040.

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