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Artemis 2: NASA recently announced the team of astronauts who will be part of the Artemis 2 mission, which is a crucial step in the agency’s ambitious plan to return humans to the moon and establish a sustainable presence there. The Artemis 2 mission involves flying around the moon without actually landing on its surface. This mission is expected to take place in 2023, and it will be the first time since the Apollo era that humans will venture that far from Earth.
The crew of Artemis 2 consists of four members, including three NASA astronauts: Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Hammock Koch, along with Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency. The announcement is noteworthy for several reasons, particularly the diversity of the team members. Victor Glover will be the first African American to go on a lunar mission, while Koch will be the first woman. This demonstrates NASA’s commitment to promoting diversity and inclusivity in the field of space exploration.
All of the NASA astronauts on the Artemis 2 mission have previously spent time on the International Space Station, which orbits Earth. Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover spent approximately six months aboard the ISS, while Christina Hammock Koch spent almost a year in space. Jeremy Hansen, on the other hand, will be making his first trip to space as part of the Artemis 2 mission.
The Artemis program, a key initiative of NASA, has set several ambitious goals such as landing the first person of color and the first woman on the moon, establishing a long-term presence on the lunar surface, and eventually sending the first astronauts to Mars. Recently, the program successfully completed the Artemis 1 mission, which tested the equipment for the uncrewed Orion space capsule orbiting the moon. NASA gathered valuable data on the capsule’s performance and safety for future manned missions.
With the upcoming Artemis 2 mission, NASA aims to send humans on the farthest crewed trip into space since the Apollo program. This ten-day mission is scheduled to launch no earlier than late 2024, and the Orion spacecraft will carry humans for the first time. The mission will help ensure that Orion’s systems function as intended with people aboard in deep space. However, the astronauts will not land on the moon during this mission.
This is because Artemis 2 needs to test new technology that has not been used during spaceflight before. Moreover, crucial equipment that would facilitate the landing of astronauts on the lunar surface, such as the lunar lander, has not been finished yet.