Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

NASA to reveal Artemis II crew for historic lunar trip

By

NASA will soon reveal the four lucky astronauts that will be sent on a flyby of the moon in the Artemis II mission.

The four crewmembers — three from NASA and one from the Canadian Space Agency — will be named on Monday, April 3, NASA chief Bill Nelson announced in a tweet on Thursday.

JUST IN: On April 3, we will reveal the crew for @NASAArtemis II!

Four crew members – three from @NASA & one from @csa_asc – will fly around the Moon. Together, they’ll test the @NASA_SLS rocket & the @NASA_Orion spacecraft. We are going! #StateOfNASA

— Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) March 9, 2023

Artemis II is currently targeted for November 2024 and will use NASA’s recently tested Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to power the crew toward the moon aboard an Orion spacecraft.

Recommended Videos

Following the same route as last year’s Artemis I mission that tested the new spaceflight hardware, the four astronauts will come within just 80 miles of the lunar surface in what will be the first crewed voyage to the moon in five decades. It will also fly humans further from Earth than ever before, to a point about 270,000 miles away.

If everything goes to plan, NASA intends to land the first woman and first person of color on the lunar surface as part of the Artemis III mission, which could take place within two years of Artemis II.

Both missions will take NASA and its counterparts another step closer to building a permanent astronaut base on the moon, paving the way for long-duration missions similar to how astronauts currently live and work aboard the International Space Station in low-Earth orbit.

The expectation is that research and development projects on the moon will help NASA prepare for the first crewed mission to Mars, which could take place in the 2030s. Crewed Mars missions could even launch from the lunar surface using a rocket powered by fuel converted from lunar water.

In related news, NASA also said that it will reveal its next-generation spacesuits in a special event on Wednesday, March 15.

The spacesuits, developed by Texas-based Axiom Space, will be worn by the Artemis III astronauts when they set foot on the lunar surface.

Using more than 50 years of spacesuit expertise, NASA created the technical and safety requirements for the new spacesuits. Axiom Space then worked with these guidelines to build the suits and associated support equipment.

“New spacesuits that allow humans to explore the lunar surface advance our capability for human exploration in space,” NASA said.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
First crewed Starliner test needs good weather for launch. Here’s the forecast
Boeing Space's Starliner spacecraft.

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft Boeing / Boeing

NASA and Boeing Space are a short time away from conducting the first crewed launch of the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Read more
NASA’s Orion spacecraft has ‘critical issues’ with its heat shield, report finds
The Orion crew module for NASA’s Artemis II mission.

The Orion crew module for NASA’s Artemis II mission. NASA/Kim Shiflett

NASA is intending to use its new Orion capsule to send astronauts to the moon under its Artemis program, but a new report finds that issues with the capsule's heat shield could be a risk to crew safety. The report from NASA's inspector general was released this week and details issues with the heat shield, which lost some material during the first flight of Orion during the Artemis I mission in 2022.

Read more
NASA selects 9 companies to work on low-cost Mars projects
This mosaic is made up of more than 100 images captured by NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter, which operated around Mars from 1976 to 1980. The scar across the center of the planet is the vast Valles Marineris canyon system.

NASA is expanding its plans for Mars, looking at not only a big, high-budget, long-term project to bring back a sample from Mars but also smaller, lower-cost missions to enable exploration of the red planet. The agency recently announced it has selected nine private companies that will perform a total of 12 studies into small-scale projects for enabling Mars science.

The companies include big names in aerospace like Lockheed Martin and United Launch Services, but also smaller companies like Redwire Space and Astrobotic, which recently landed on the surface of the moon. Each project will get a 12-week study to be completed this summer, with NASA looking at the results to see if it will incorporate any of the ideas into its future Mars exploration plans.

Read more