NASA will announce in April the astronauts who will return to the Moon in 2024

This crew will be the first to travel to the Moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972, more than half a century ago.

Bill Nelson, director of NASA, declared that there will be “three Americans and one Canadian” and, at the moment, the launch date is expected in November 2024, according to an official from the American space agency.

The four astronauts will take off on NASA's SLS rocket – the most powerful in the world – and travel aboard the Orion capsule atop the rocket. The capsule will detach once in space and take them to the Moon, but without landing.

All active astronauts – currently 41 – are officially eligible to participate in the approximately 10-day Artemis 2 mission, but the selection process is being kept secret.

The SLS rocket performed just one flight during the Artemis 1 mission, in which it propelled the Orion capsule -without a crew- to the Moon, in a first test lasting just over 25 days that successfully returned to Earth in December.

(With AFP)

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