Seoul Gazette - NASA to reveal crew for 2024 flight around the Moon

NYSE - LSE

RBGPF	3.42%	62.87	$
CMSC	0.04%	22.34	$
BTI	-2.06%	61.06	$
RIO	0.51%	105.89	$
AZN	-0.83%	177.27	$
GSK	-1.55%	52.23	$
BP	-2.86%	41.59	$
NGG	-0.33%	81.57	$
VOD	-3.53%	15	$
RELX	-2.74%	32.84	$
CMSD	0.27%	22.32	$
JRI	0.89%	12.78	$
BCE	-0.99%	24.04	$
RYCEF	5.91%	18.11	$
BCC	0.63%	71.59	$

NASA to reveal crew for 2024 flight around the Moon

BOULEVARD 03.04.2023

NASA is to reveal the names on Monday of the astronauts -- three Americans and a Canadian -- who will fly around the Moon next year, a prelude to returning humans to the lunar surface for the first time in a half century.

Text size:

The mission, Artemis II, is scheduled to take place in November 2024 with the four-person crew circling the Moon but not landing on it.

As part of the Artemis program, NASA aims to send astronauts to the Moon in 2025 -- more than five decades after the historic Apollo missions ended in 1972.

Besides putting the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, the US space agency hopes to establish a lasting human presence on the lunar surface and eventually launch a voyage to Mars.

NASA administrator Bill Nelson said this week at a "What's Next Summit" hosted by Axios that he expected a crewed mission to Mars by the year 2040.

The four members of the Artemis II crew will be announced at an event at 10:00 am (1500 GMT) at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The 10-day Artemis II mission will test NASA's powerful Space Launch System rocket as well as the life-support systems aboard the Orion spacecraft.

The first Artemis mission wrapped up in December with an uncrewed Orion capsule returning safely to Earth after a 25-day journey around the Moon.

During the trip around Earth's orbiting satellite and back, Orion logged well over a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) and went farther from Earth than any previous habitable spacecraft.

Nelson was also asked at the Axios summit whether NASA could stick to its timetable of landing astronauts on the south pole of the Moon in late 2025.

"Space is hard," Nelson said. "You have to wait until you know that it's as safe as possible, because you're living right on the edge.

"So I'm not so concerned with the time," he said.

"We're not going to launch until it's right."

Only 12 people -- all of them white men -- have set foot on the Moon.

S. Sokolow--BTZ

Featured

Vast areas of coral reef could resist climate change: study

In the crystalline waters off Kenya's coast, coral reefs are thriving -- evidence of a rare good news story in the battle to protect oceans from the ravages of climate change.

Eight dead in fiery US bomber crash in California: military

Eight people died when a US B-52 bomber crashed and erupted into a catastrophic fire shortly after takeoff at an air force base in California on Monday, officials said.

'They want to destroy us': Shock and anger as Russian attack sets Kyiv cathedral ablaze

Father Makariy, a high-ranking clergyman at Kyiv's Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, was woken at around 5:00 am with a huge roar -- the cathedral at the heart of one of Orthodox Christianity's most important sites had been set on fire in a Russian attack.

Burnt-out Indonesians beat the blues with children's games

Flushed and sweating, 31-year-old Annisa Enggracia Fidel runs back and forth to defend her fort from invaders -- hundreds of fellow adults all beating the blues by playing a nostalgic Indonesian children's game.